Montclair Beer, Wine & Music Festival returning June 17 to Oakland hills
By Lou Fancher
Beer and wine can be bottled and live music performed on public stages, but bottling the true essence of a successful beer, wine and music festival is impossible. It’s a community spirit bubbling up harmoniously like a wellspring that makes a festival sing and will be in evidence from noon to 6 p.m. June 17 at the ninth annual Montclair Beer, Wine & Music Festival (montclairvillage.com/beer-wine-music-festival). Announced by the Montclair Village Association (MVA) and presented this year by CityHealth (cityhealth.com), highlights will include beer from local craft breweries; more than 50 wines curated from seven countries worldwide; a special selection of mocktails; three local bands performing on a stage with a pedal-powered sound system; multiple family-friendly activities; and the participation of Montclair Village’s retail, food, art, business and other establishments. Proceeds from sales of the festival’s Unlimited Tasting Package ($50 presale, $60 at the door) will benefit the MVA, a nonprofit organization that has been active in the community for 75 years. Special offers are available for visitors who enroll in the Montclair Cares Club, which supports community activities during the year and is this year funding the Kids’ Play Palooza Fun Zone. Businesses participating as sponsors in addition to CityHealth include Meet Your Core Pilates, Mister Beever’s Paws & Claws, Flair Travel, AmaWaterways, Montclair Sports Tennis, Farmstead Cheeses & Wines, Crown Wines & Spirits and Winter Williams Presents. Tante’s Catering (tantescatering.com) will return in partnership with the Montclair Cares Club, bringing not only abundant, palate-pleasing food (grilled chicken shawarma wraps, hand-dipped soy hot dogs, falafels, garlic fries) but vital festival expertise. Tante’s owner, Jacob Cohen, in an interview provided a quick overview of the company’s 49-year history. “I bought Tante’s more than 20 years ago from the original owner, a member of my family who made knishes, those Jewish potato snack pies. He decided to take them to the street in the early ’70s, and they were a hit.” Launched at the 1974 Castro Street Fair and in demand ever since at a stable of annual San Francisco events such as the Stern Grove Festival and concerts in Golden Gate Park, Cohen said awareness of the most essential aspects of catering outdoor festivals has come with time. “The planning: You have to think of every detail. When you go in, it’s only a concrete street. You’re opening a kitchen, moving the food and equipment in, setting it up, marketing it, packing it all up. Every minute and space is targeted for specific parts. Plus you’re doing it safely, smoothly, attractively, and in compliance with local rules for different jurisdictions. It’s a new, major project every time.” Like almost everything, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the company lingers. Cohen during the pandemic converted his warehouse space to a shipping company, distributing frozen foods nationwide and adding food production and consulting services to Tante’s capabilities. Cohen said the catering business has picked up but in 2023 remains around 50% of prepandemic levels. Even so, he said he curates carefully and that the Montclair festival is one he always includes because the presenters believe in strong planning, because the community is enthusiastic and because working with the MVA is easy and rewarding. Similarly, Sen Beever and Alex (Alicia) Ricci, of Mister Beever’s Paws & Claws (senvettech.com), point to camaraderie and another feature they said is in short supply these days — kindness — as the festival’s attractive centerpieces. “This is our neighborhood,” Ricci said. “Especially while everything is tense in communities nationwide — over women’s rights to their own bodies, queer issues and other things relating to justice, it’s wonderful to have something that is community but is not that. We can let loose, welcome everyone and have fun.” Mister Beever’s Paws & Claws and Meet Your Core Pilates (meetyourcorepilates.com) are sponsoring the stage where the sound system is powered by members of Orange Theory Fitness. Beever said he’s pleased to support local musicians and to do it in a way that protects the environment through people-powered cycling that provides the electricity. Year-round positive energy, though, is what Beever said has supported his company during lean and plentiful years and for which he is most appreciative. “The people have been kind and wonderful to us for the last 12 years,” he said. In 2020, after sheltering in place for three months, they began to take on some medical clients. Beever has been a veterinary technician and animal trainer for more than 20 years and, along with managing multiple veterinary practices, has experience assisting board-certified veterinarians working in neurology, dermatology, internal medicine, imaging, oncology, ophthalmology, cardiology and more. Importantly, he is a “do-no-harm” animal trainer, following protocols and practices that mean no punitive methods are used in the training of animals and their (human) caretakers. “A big piece of our business as vet techs is human training,” Ricci said. “It’s getting folks on the same page with their animals to have success living forward. The biggest piece is learning how the owners learn best on a given day. “At a training session, if the owner is stressed, I gauge that to make the most of the session. I still provide the educational component, and I’m diligent about that, but I do it with kindness.” Now that pandemic restrictions have ended, Beever said their pet training business is “overwhelmingly busy” and “running at full speed.” Most often, the animals they see are suffering separation anxiety, expressed in barking, lunging, fearful behavior such as hiding behind owners or pulling on leashes to escape interactions with other animals. He said indicators of animals’ undersocialization are largely due to having been sequestered in homes for months. “They know the four walls of their homes, but not Fluffy from down the street,” Beever said. While he said working on pro-social animal behavior using positive reinforcement training methods requires time and patience — from animals and humans — awareness of the benefits has increased. “In the last 10 years, there have been many science papers proving that negative reinforcement is harmful to the animals,” said Beever. “Now, there are ‘do-no-harm’ conferences, podcasts, videos. After the pandemic and being with their animals so much, people see their pets have minds, souls and that this approach is better for everybody.” With abundant appointment bookings that now extend for months, Beever and Ricci said the festival comes at the perfect time to say “thank you for the support of small, owner-operated businesses” and to enjoy festival fun with the community. |