The Downtown Merchants Association submitted a formal proposal to the City of Helen in late January requesting the designation of all twelve calendar months as "Oktoberfest-eligible programming periods," with the express intent of allowing participating businesses to fly festival banners, operate street-food vendors under the event-vendor licensing framework, and market Helen as an "authentic Bavarian festival destination" year-round. The proposal is currently under review by the City's Special Events Committee. The Bavarian Brainrot newsroom asked six area residents, photographed in person on Main Street at Chattahoochee Strasse between 9:30 and 11:15 a.m. Thursday, what they make of it.

Norman Teague, age 73, retired systems analyst, photographed in front of the Bodensee Restaurant on Main Street, Thursday at 9:34 a.m.

"The proposal strikes me as, on its face, an obvious economic logic. Oktoberfest is what people come here for. The question nobody in that proposal answers is what happens to the word 'Oktober.' I am not, I should say, a German speaker. But I understand, in a basic way, that the name of the festival refers to the month. If you extend the festival to, say, March, you have a March festival with a German name referring to a different month. This is either a minor inconsistency that reasonable people can live with, or it is the kind of thing that, once a person notices it, they cannot stop noticing it. I am in the latter group. I recognize that this places me in the minority. I am, at 73, accustomed to this."

Gretchen Voltz, age 44, owner-operator, Pretzel Stand 7, Festhalle parking lot, photographed at her cart stand, Thursday at 9:51 a.m.

"I have operated this cart for nine years. In a twelve-month Oktoberfest calendar, my operating season goes from, on average, twenty-two weeks per year to fifty-two weeks per year. My revenue, projected conservatively and accounting for reduced per-week traffic in the off-peak months, more than doubles. My operating costs — the lease on the cart, the salt supplier contract, the two part-time employees I bring in on Saturdays — those costs scale with volume, not with the calendar. So the economics are, from my specific position, favorable. I will say that the pretzel is, as an object, a festival food. It is what you eat when you are celebrating. I believe this about the pretzel, personally. Whether it remains a festival food when the festival never ends is a philosophical question I have thought about and, provisionally, set aside."

Alice Greer-Fountain, age 38, kindergarten teacher, White County Primary School, photographed on the corner of Main Street and Chattahoochee Strasse, Thursday at 10:14 a.m.

"My classroom is one hundred and forty feet from the Festhalle's east speaker array. I have measured it. The school is not currently inside the event-noise zone defined by the City's Special Events ordinance — we are just outside it. During the three and a half weeks of October Oktoberfest, my students experience what I would describe as a persistent baseline excitement that affects attention spans and nap compliance in the way you would expect. I manage it. What I will tell you is that three and a half weeks I can manage. My concern, with the year-round proposal, is a structural one. I am not opposed to Bavarian culture as an educational theme. I have, in fact, incorporated a unit on the Alps into my geography curriculum. My concern is the speaker array. Specifically, the east speaker array. Specifically, the fact that it faces my classroom window at a direct angle that, in October, produces what I have come to call the persistent brass situation. I would ask the Merchants Association to consider directional speaker reorientation as a condition of any year-round approval."

Pete Dunmore, age 55, owner, Dunmore's Bait and Tackle, Bruckenstrasse, photographed outside his shop, Thursday at 10:29 a.m.

"I sell fishing supplies. Helen is on the Chattahoochee. The Chattahoochee has trout. I am, in a fundamental sense, not part of the Bavarian-themed downtown economy. My store has been here since 1999. I have, in that time, watched the festival calendar expand from two weeks to three and a half. Each expansion brought more foot traffic, which brought, at the margins, slightly more business for me, because people who are at a festival sometimes decide to go fishing afterward. I am not going to sit here and tell you that is a large segment. But it is a segment. If the festival is year-round, I expect that segment remains approximately the same on a per-week basis and grows on an annual basis. So I am, arithmetically, in favor. What I would say is this: the Chattahoochee has a fishing season, and a festival calendar, and the two have historically been different things, and there is something in me that wanted them to remain different things. That is not a policy position. That is just a thing I notice about myself."

Susan Althaus, age 67, retired, photographed on the bench outside the Helen Welcome Center, Thursday at 10:47 a.m.

"I have lived in this town, within the city limits, for thirty-one years. My husband and I moved here in 1995 because it was quiet in January and February and the rent was manageable. January and February in Helen are, or were, the closest this town gets to a normal small mountain town. You can hear the river. You can park on Bruckenstrasse without circling. The Festhalle sits empty and you can look at it and understand that a thing that has a season is more interesting than a thing that doesn't. I am aware this is a minority position in a town whose economy runs on festivals. I am not telling anyone else what to value. I am telling you what January means to me, and what it will mean if this proposal passes. It will mean nothing in particular, is what it will mean."

Rudi Bachmann, age 28, head server, the Old Munich Restaurant, Edelweiss Strasse, photographed outside the restaurant's side entrance, Thursday at 11:08 a.m.

"I moved here from Savannah four years ago because this job paid more than the restaurant I was at and because, honestly, I liked the idea of living somewhere with mountains. I have, in four years, worked every Oktoberfest. I have worked, collectively, approximately seventy-seven festival days. I enjoy festival days more than non-festival days. The restaurant is busier, the tips are better, the energy in the room is — I don't want to use the word festive, because that's circular, but it is that. If the festival runs all year, the tips are better all year. That is the argument I care about. I want to be transparent about that. The philosophy I leave to people who have been here thirty-one years."

The City of Helen's Special Events Committee is scheduled to take up the Downtown Merchants Association's year-round Oktoberfest proposal at its March 12 regular meeting. The proposal, as submitted, does not specify a noise-management plan, a vendor-density limit, or a definition of "Oktoberfest-eligible programming." The committee's agenda is available at the City of Helen's website under the Governance tab.

— Tasha Pemberton