Last First Friday?

Visitors to the downtown arts district on the next two "First Fridays" -- Aug. 5 and Sept. 2 -- will still find galleries open late and thousands of people mingling on the sidewalks as usual, enjoying a warm summer evening.

So what does it mean when it's reported that Whirlygig Inc., official organizer of the monthly downtown live-music event, reports First Friday has been "canceled" for August or September, to return in October, in time to celebrate the event's ninth anniversary?

Whirlygig announced the two-month hiatus Sunday night on the nonprofit's website.

Whirlygig was founded in 2002 to organize First Friday, which started as an art gallery walk with a few hundred participants. These days it draws 5,000 to 10,000 people, depending on the weather and the time of year, offering outdoor art exhibits, live music, concessions and the like on Casino Center Boulevard and intersecting streets south of Charleston Boulevard.

The nonprofit is responsible for drawing some permits and purchasing insurance for the event, arranging things such as fencing and lighting and paying for security, which has become a major expense as the event has grown. Because the street fair is on public right of way, police officers and city marshals are hired at overtime rates to provide security, says Naomi Arin, who founded Whirlygig with president Cindy Funkhouser.

Whirlygig's funding comes from corporate sponsors, donations, grants and the city of Las Vegas, but that funding has been strained for some time. The event has been scaled back during the slower summer months in past years, but this year conditions are such that a break became necessary, Ms. Arin explains.

Some local merchants were less than pleased by the "cancellation" announcement, insisting some festivities will still occur.

"How do you cancel something that doesn't belong to you?" asks Westley Myles Isbutt, a longtime Arts District champion who owns the Arts Factory and Bar+Bistro. "First Friday isn't about any one particular location. It's not any one person. It's all of us."

With every municipal budget straining in the current recession, it's hardly a good time to propose the city of Las Vegas make a carte blanche offer of "free security" for such events. But while big cash grants are out, surely it's the job of the municipality to encourage rather than discourage events such as First Friday, if only to help keep taxpaying businesses in business.

And lots more could be done to reorient the city bureaucracy into something other than a costly obstacle course.

Many First Friday attendees have had their cars towed away while attending the event in recent months. Is there nothing the city could do to help provide free parking, possibly by renting private lots or at least providing property owners some guarantee against liability?

Meantime, a Review-Journal editor accompanying Mr. Isbutt on his monthly odyssey through the city bureaucracy this spring -- watching as Mr. Isbutt paid the hundreds of dollars in fees and sought the whopping fistful of permits required just to set out a few tables in his parking lot, serve wine or beer and employ a guitar-player -- came up with an account to rival the nightmares of Franz Kafka. (See www.lvrj.com/opinion/death-by-a-thousand-permits-119049179.html)

Officials including Mayor Carolyn Goodman and Councilman Bob Coffin (whose ward includes the Arts District) must do a lot more than shrug and say "The rules are the rules. There's nothing we can do, but we sure do care."