Two Way Street vendor, poet, writer, and researcher, Kharlos Panterra has served a critical role in planning for Brick Light Nights.  Panterra wants to ensure that Brick Light Nights remains as accessible to micro-businesses as possible over the 17 weeks of festivities.

 

“Brick Light Nights is a good opportunity for people who are living on the edge and in the margins to be part of a festival – a community-driven event.”

 

“I’m a connector.  I’m like a sociologist just pulling things apart, asking questions.  My biggest contribution to this kind of event is that I am a connector between different stakeholders with different backgrounds and sensitivities.”

 

“Brick Light Nights will always have the potential to create mixed income community development, but I do not think that that was the developers’ concern when they first initatited it last year. It arose more out of brick and mortar businesses’ needs for an increase in sales that was lost during ART construction.  Now, as we start our second season, we have the opportunity to make Brick Light Nights about something more, but it requires for it to remain inclusive.”

 

“I feel that everyone should be making a contibution to the pot in some way – a nominal fee that is sort of a fee based upon commitment. I think that non-profits should also have to pay – in order to transition out of a transactional based to relationship based economy we have to start putting into common discourse the fact that there is a commons and everyone has to contribute to building it.”

 

“To make places ‘sticky’ there has to be a sense of safety first of all.  When I say safe, that isn’t just for customers but also for the microentrepreneurs participating in the event.”

 

“The number one fear that people have is being isolated. We need to be able to establish cities where more interactions are taking place. Brick Light Nights can accomplish this.”

 

“The amount of local talent and number of microbusinesses that are introduced to Brick Light Night are measures of non-gentrification.”

 

“I like the idea of Two Way Street vendors and other types of street vendors serving as ambassadors for businesses. But there needs to be some kind of filter for how those ambassadors are chosen. Two Way Street could be that filter and that third party for connecting vendors with brick and mortars.”

 

“At the end of the day, it is not just about sales, it’s about vendors being honored – and it doesn’t matter how scruffy or business-like they appear.”

 

It has been almost 2 years since I first caught wind of the street paper movement while studying City Planning at the University of New Mexico. After attending the 2015 International Network of Street Paper Summit in Seattle, I knew that Albuquerque’s original street paper launched in 1990 had to be revived.

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