Cranky Neighbors Being Cranky in Portsmouth Again [OPINION]

Why does everything fun meet with so much resistance in Portsmouth?

Fortunately, fun usually wins out. Efforts to Keep Portsmouth Loud and to provide outdoor skating at Puddle Dock Pond in Strawberry Banke were met with resistance before the forces of fun and frivolity succeeded.

The latest Get Off My Lawn effort involves blocking a permanent stage being installed at Prescott Park (because a temporary one that's there for half the year is preferred somehow).

According to Jeff McMenemy's essential read on SeacoastOnline.com, the reasoning involves a fairly unusual interpretation of the conditions that Josie Prescott set out when providing the land to the city back in 1940. Specifically, what does "recreational purposes" really mean?  Playing kick-the-can after a trip to the soda shop, I say!

Hosting plays and live music? Heresy! Because some people happen to live near a park where, yes, noisy things happen we need to get lawyers involved. You'd think these people would know that the void in parks where nothing in particular happens tends to be filled by bad things happening. Which is safer, a park with family entertainment or one without?

Year after year, the folks behind the Prescott Park Arts Festival provide a phenomenal schedule of family entertainment that keeps Portsmouth vibrant. Lets hope they get the nice new stage they, and the residents of of Portsmouth, deserve.