
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 25, 1990                   TAG: 9004250552
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FIRST FRIDAYS AT FIVE IS AN OLD, BAD IDEA

FOR MAJOR issues, such as consolidation, letters fill these pages, including the wise analyses of those who detect an "of the bureaucrats, for the bureaucrats, by the bureaucrats" tone to this most recent effort.

The brayings of fundamentalists and ultraconservatives also flourish here, along with the insightful comments of those who question the wisdom of simple answers to complex questions.

Yet few people have broached the issue of the growing First Fridays at Five, our local tribute to Bacchus as a Yuppie. So many aspects of this feeble effort jangle against common sense that a letter is the only response.

First, the search for "young professionals" to decorate this event is totally offensive. Will the presence of a blue collar cause a mad rush to the washroom for a quick purge? Will the city appoint a gatekeeper to separate the wheat from the chaff? Must both women and men be "professionals," or do the planners have a little al fresco singles bar in the works here?

Then we have the prospect of a few thousand "professional" drunks wheeling home to the suburbs after each FFAF. After all, no self-respecting Yuppie would bus or carpool, and no one actually lives downtown. I already have visions of bumper cars on 581 South becoming a hallowed FFAF tradition.

The incorporation of noble purposes and non-profit organizations as beneficiaries of the collected booty is the final insult. Must the Literacy Volunteers and others become cash bars to do their good works? Are these groups really so indiscriminate and desperate in their fund-raising programs?

I know we all want Roanoke to prosper, but FFAF is an old, bad idea that serves the moment and sacrifices the purposes of people really interested in this city. I think we should just be ashamed. JOHN R. MONTGOMERY ROANOKE

by CNB