Community Concerns Overshadow Goombay Event

By Maya Carpenter

The pride-filled 2007 Goombay festival was more than a cultural celebration for Asheville’s African American community. For some it’s a family reunion, for others it’s a once-a-year event where people come from across the country to gather and fellowship.

However, “The Gathering,” as the festival was coined, took on a different meaning when the Secretary of State Office’s Trademark Enforcement Task Force converged on the scene. Less than two hours after the opening event, Trademark Enforcement had confiscated the counterfeit merchandise of some vendors.

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The Asheville Citizen-Times reported on the investigation, but
questions have been raised as to whether the whole story was told.


Apparently, the Asheville Police Department had suspicions about the
upcoming vendors at Goombay, according to Liz Proctor, a spokesperson
at the Trademark Enforcement Task Force. The APD contacted their agency
several days before Goombay.


With only two Trademark Enforcement Task Force agents to cover all 100
counties in North Carolina, with such limited resources, they go only
where they are called, Proctor said.


“What I’ve been told is that APD had a booklet that the festival
organizers provided to all of the vendors specifically asking them not
to have counterfeit goods at the festival,” Proctor said.


Chief William Hogan of APD confirmed the existence of a document and
said that the APD discussed the vendor process in advance with Goombay
representatives. “We assisted the… Trademark Enforcement Task Force
with investigation throughout the city.” Biltmore Square Mall vendors
were also charged the same day as Goombay, Hogan said.


“No person from the APD gave my staff or myself any booklets, or
communicated with us about any seizure of goods prior to this event.
Our Goombay Guidelines specify that all vendors must comply with
Federal, State, County and City laws in the selling of food or
merchandise” says Harry Harrison, Executive Director of the YMI
Cultural Center. “Even though we had this unfortunate incident, the
Goombay Festival was a successful event,” Mr. Harrison concluded.


“A lot of the black community is guilty and punished long before the
facts have been laid out. If the same things haven’t been done at Bele
Chere, it gives the appearance you are more selective in those who are
breaking the law,” said Pastor Spencer E. Hardaway, who pastors at Rock
Hill Missionary Baptist church. “Those are the issues we have to deal
with.”


The community is still waiting for an explanation as to why Bele Chere
was not investigated like Goombay; meanwhile, some in the African
American community are unhappy about the different treatment the two
festivals received this summer.