on the State House lawn on Aug. 4.
The Fraternal Order of Police convention had a mixed economic impact on Providence and Rhode Island, based on interviews with restaurant and bar owners.
As many as 10,000 police officers and family members were expected to arrive in Providence for the 56th biennial Fraternal Order of Police convention, held Aug. 4 to 7 at the Rhode Island Convention Center. Police officers from across the country, Canada and Europe were expected to spend more than $8.4 million in Rhode Island during their visit, according to local tourism officials.
About 3,500 convention delegates pre-registered for the convention, said Daniel Silva, president of the Rhode Island Fraternal Order of Police.
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No official data gauging the economic impact of the police convention were available at press time. But three days into the convention, many restaurant owners and managers said they were seeing less of a bump in business than expected.
Overall, restaurants and other businesses with the closest proximity to the convention center reported the greatest increase in business last week. In particular, restaurant-pubs with “cop bar” reputations in downtown Providence reported the greatest bump in business, as out-of-town police officers apparently got word-of-mouth information from local police about where to get a meal and beer.
“I send them to restaurants that I know can help them out. For instance, I tell people I like the Crow’s Nest (a Warwick restaurant). I’ve been going there for 30 years, the place is great,” said Silva.
Some expensive restaurants said they didn’t see as big a bump in business as pubs and larger chain restaurants, based on several interviews. Businesses that were organized about courting the officers with advertisements and outdoor banners fared best in the pursuit of convention business.
At Blake’s Tavern and Murphy’s Deli & Bar in downtown Providence – established police haunts within blocks of the convention center – business boomed all week, so much so that city blocks were occasionally closed to car traffic to accommodate the hoards of police who thronged to the two businesses, said Silva.
“We’ve been insane all week. We definitely are feeling an impact,” said Jill Drouin of Blake’s Tavern on Wednesday afternoon last week. “I was at Trinity (Brew House in Providence) last night and they weren’t nearly as busy as we’ve been. I think it’s because we are a cop bar. Once the word got around we started to see a lot more people.”
Just a five-minute walk from the convention center at Ri Ra Irish Pub and Restaurant at 50 Exchange Terrace, owner Paul Stewart said he had experienced a definite uptick in business – but not as much as he thought he’d get while the police were in town.
“Definitely, we’re seeing a jump in numbers. As regards to every night being like a Saturday night, that’s not happening. We expected late-night business to be thriving,” said Stewart. “We geared up to do substantially more business because of all the media hype, and obviously the figures we forecast we’re not going to reach. There was expected to be 10,000 people downtown here, but I don’t think there’s anywhere near 10,000 here at all.”
Stewart said that his evening business was not as brisk because thousands of convention delegates were lodged outside of Providence.
“They were not too happy with the arrangements the city made. They expected two new hotels downtown, but they are getting on a bus and going back to wherever they’re staying – in Connecticut, in Massachusetts,” said Stewart. “I just think there was a lot of hype, and we’re not actually having the impact we expected to get from it.”
Kathleen Ceseretti, vice president of sales for the Providence Warwick Convention and Visitors Bureau, said that she had heard that other businesses in Providence were disappointed at the amount of business the convention generated. She cautioned that all evidence of economic impact was anecdotal.
“I heard that it wasn’t as busy as they thought it was going to be last night on Federal Hill. I’m getting mixed messages, but I can tell you that our hotels are doing well,” she said. “We bid on this (convention) five years ago, and we were talking about building some hotels, and we’re talking about the same hotels now. But that just didn’t pan out. This has never been touted as just a Providence convention. We can’t house that many people in Providence.”
At Restaurant Cav, a gourmet eatery in the Jewelry District, owner Silvia Moubayed said her business had experienced only a 15 percent jump in sales.
“We were not expecting a big increase. I think that I’m a very art-oriented
restaurant, I have a lot of African art. It’s a very upscale and beautiful place,”
she said. “I don’t know about the location – where are they staying? Do they
have cars or are they walking? Because if they are walking, it takes several
minutes to walk from downtown, and I don’t know if they’ll do that or not.”
