Editor’s note: the following letter from a downtown Burlington business owner was presented to Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak and the Burlington City Council at its Monday, August 25 meeting at which a City Hall Park safety plan was discussed. Mad River Distillers is located at the corner of Main and St. Paul streets, across from City Hall Park.

Dear Mayor Mulvaney-Stanak and City Council Members,

Our Vermont-based business, Mad River Distillers, opened our flagship tasting room and retail store in Burlington the Spring of 2016. We are a tourist-facing small business located at 137 St. Paul Street, at the corner of Main and St. Paul – diagonal from the Flynn Theater and directly across from City Hall Park. 

Through a combination of hard work, responding to customer feedback, and establishing our storefront as a highly-rated destination on websites such as Trip Advisor, we have managed to grow the business in our Burlington location every consecutive year until 2024, which saw a moderate but worrying decline. 

Since January 1, 2025, our business revenue is down 50%. This is not due to market trends, weather, or competition. It is due to the declining business environment in downtown Burlington. 

A recent Saturday afternoon illustrated the point perfectly, it was 75 degrees and sunny, with a nice breeze blowing off the lake, and what would previously have been a day that easily would have seen 75-100 customers visit our tasting room capped out at 16. Our neighbors reported the same disappointing results. There were no lines and no wait times for tables at restaurants and cafes around the park, just a lot of anxious employees looking down the street to see if a crowd of tourists would magically appear. The owner of neighboring business Drink ensured that I was safely able to get in my car at the end of the night, as there was an intoxicated individual careening shirtless around our back parking lot, weaving in and out of cars. 

The well-documented combination of disruptive, years-long construction boondoggles, a severely-diminished sense of public safety, and the visible, unchecked presence of individuals struggling with homelessness and addiction has created a hostile environment for tourism, commerce, and employees alike. The atmosphere downtown is not just unpleasant – it is actively driving people away. And that includes not only tourist traffic, but also locals and employees, too. 

Our visitors routinely ask staff about the individuals loitering in and around the park, rather than our award-winning products. Longtime local customers now avoid the area and express their regret. Hotels no longer recommend that their guests stroll around the downtown business district. The reduction in traffic and tips leads to fewer scheduled hours, which in turn leads to less income for my employees- I’ve lost three valued long-term employees in the last six months – each of them citing their unwillingness to continue working across from City Hall Park as a primary reason for leaving. 

This is a business crisis, and it requires urgent action—not more task forces, studies, or theoretical five-year plans. Our downtown core cannot sustain itself if the message it sends to visitors and residents alike is: “You’re not welcome here, you’re not safe here, and we don’t care.” Mad River Distillers, like a lot of other impacted businesses, does more than generate revenue for ourselves and income for our employees- we showcase Vermont products and lifestyle thereby encouraging tourists to visit and visitors to consider relocating. That is a huge benefit to the city and the state. 

We need leadership to acknowledge the dual reality: that our vulnerable populations deserve compassion and that our central business district must remain welcoming and functional. Once Burlington loses its reputation as a destination, it’s not going to come back. 

It is not mutually exclusive to provide services and support to those in need while also implementing common-sense policies that discourage open drug use, defecation and loitering in our most vital economic corridor. This is the face of downtown Burlington, and right now that face is a person passed out face-down on the pavement. A Boston TV station recently aired a segment about the decline of Burlington, and in the video was a naked man weaving across the four-way intersection – with our storefront and logo clearly visible in the background! 

The question we pose is simple: Why is the City of Burlington continuing to allow City Hall Park – our front yard and what should be the shining gem of a multi-million-dollar downtown revision – to serve as the epicenter of this crisis? 

Why not encourage service providers, resource hubs, and support infrastructure to operate in other parts of town where those who need help can receive it without paralyzing the economic and cultural heart of Burlington? The current messaging is that the taxpaying businesses that cater to our city’s visitors are second fiddle to the hundred or so estimated residents in crisis, who depend on the business tax revenue to fund their crisis services! Our priorities are all wrong. 

Downtown businesses are fighting for survival. Right now. We are losing tourists, customers and employees on a daily basis. 

Burlington is at the precipice of losing its reputation as a livable, welcoming, and economically vibrant city, it will not come back easily. Or possibly, at all. It will be empty storefronts, graffiti and boarded-up windows. It will be out-of-town businesses no longer sending employees to stay in downtown hotels. It will mean students no longer renting downtown apartments. And Burlington will cease to be a destination for anyone, including parents of students checking out potential college destinations. We are on the verge of all of those things happening. Right now. 

We urge the City to act decisively – today – to reclaim and revitalize the downtown for everyone’s benefit. Stop allowing that 100 or so disruptive members of the community at the core of the problem to continue using the downtown business district as their living room, bathroom and ashtray. The police know them by name, the workers know them by sight, why are they allowed to continue to hold an entire city for ransom? 

Mimi Buttenheim President Mad River Distillers, 137 St. Paul Street, Burlington

(Cover photo from Mad River Distillers website)