Merchants celebrate completion of road work
By Jim Smedley
Staff Writer

NORWAY – The Norway Business Association figures the best way to celebrate the end of summer road construction is with a sale.

So, to that end the group has decided to stage a Welcome Back Main Street (The End Is in Sight) kickoff to the annual customer Appreciation Days.

Events will start with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 11 a.m. Friday when a yellow ribbon is stretched across Main Street from the parking lot next to L.F. Pike & Son and the New Balance Athletic Shoe Retail.

Association President Lesley Dean said her group wanted to do something different to kick off the annual event and enlisted the help of Norway Downtown Revitalization.

Dean said the customer appreciation event is based on the Dollar Days of the 1950s, when stores had sales twice a year.

“We reinvented these activities several times, over the past six to eight years,” Dean said. “We used to hold it on the first weekend in August and to accommodate other events we moved it to the last weekend before Labor Day.”

“The merchants all try to have special sales or promotions or introduce new fall products,” she said.

Usually the merchants have a full weekend of activities, but not knowing what condition the road would be in forced the cancellation some events, most notably the Baby Parade and the Street Market.

Dean said there will still be the annual Business Auction at 6 p.m. Aug. 22 in the parking lot next to Pike’s.

There will be several dignitaries at the ribbon-cutting including state Sen. Rick Bennett and a representative from U.S. Sen. Susan Collins’ office, Dean said. “We’re even going to invite some of the guys who worked on the road.”

jsmedley@sunjournal.com

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