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Thousands of people flocked to the annual Obon Festival, but this year’s event was missing some of its signature foods and features.
The Japanese celebration, which for 66 years has been hosted by the Mountain View Buddhist Temple, was facing beefed-up scrutiny from city building and fire inspectors. As a result, organizers say they were restricted from setting up their traditional wooden booths, and they weren’t be able to cook the same variety of Japanese dishes.
While organizers described this year’s Obon as a success, the event was clearly smaller than prior years, said Mike Inouye, a temple spokesman. Normally the temple’s largest annual fundraiser, this year event took in about 20 percent less in revenues than last year.
This reduction is partly due to new restrictions by the Mountain View Fire Department prohibiting the temple from running gas lines for the event’s food stands. Obon organizers say this meant a wide range of traditional dishes that required deep-frying, boiling or large amounts of rice were impossible to cook in large quantities on-site. That severely limited their ability to make popular dishes such as udon, tempura, chirashi, futomaki, agesushi and spam musubi.
Meanwhile, building inspectors required the festival to obtain separate building permits for each booth structure. In prior years, the festival has used traditional wooden booths to host carnival games, concessionaires and other attractions. For this year’s event, organizers had to rent smaller canopies. Some carnival games, such as the coin-toss booths, were not featured this year. In addition, changes to the electrical wiring and lighting forced the festival to limit its hours of operation.
Mountain View officials say city inspectors were simply enforcing the existing code requirements for the Obon’s Festival’s temporary use permit, said senior city planner Diana Pancholi. In prior years, this event permit was processed by the city Recreation Department, but this year the review included staff from the building and fire departments, she said.
“We want to make sure that we have safe operating conditions and that this event can be organized in a safe manner,” Pancholi said. “We’ve been talking about them for a long time now after the last event, so this shouldn’t be a surprise.”
While disappointed, organizers for the Obon Festival said they accepted the changes with a philosophical perspective. Inouye said the Buddhist congregation wanted to ensure that their guests weren’t upset to find some regular features of the festival missing this year. They tried their best to adapt to the new rules. This year’s event featured various new teriyaki dishes and “Japan dogs.” Other temples in San Jose and Palo Alto volunteered their kitchens to help prepare sushi and spam musubi off-site.
Pointing to the Buddhist concept of impermanence, temple president Sterling Makishima said the community was finding ways to move forward.
“It makes me a little sad that my grandkids are not going to have the same memories of Obon that I had and my children had, growing up at the temple all these years,” said Makishima. “But that’s what they tell us, right? That nothing stays the same.”
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A Spare the Air alert has been issued for July 26, 2018, when people are advised to carpool or take public transit due to unhealthy ozone levels, according to regional air quality officials. Image courtesy Bay Area Air Quality Management District. -
Christopher Flemming, 9, plays with his dog Shepherd while waiting for the rest of the family next to Christ Temple Community Church. Photo by Natalia Nazarova -
From left: Christopher Flemming, Faith Martin Ware with Skylar Ware, 23 month, Amir Ware, 11, Nyla Ware, 13, Taylor Ware, 7, and Erika Martin, 33 pose for the photo at the entrance to the Christ Temple Community Church. Photo by Natalia Nazarova -
From left: Amir Ware, 11, Faith Martin Ware with Skylar Ware, 23 month, Nyla Ware, 13, Taylor Ware, 7, Christopher Flemming and his mom Erika Martin pose for the photo at the entrance to the Christ Temple Community Church. Photo by Natalia Nazarova -
A Spare the Air alert has been issued for July 26, 2018, when people are advised to carpool or take public transit due to unhealthy ozone levels, according to regional air quality officials. Image courtesy Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
I am not planning on attending this year, but have in the past. It is a wonderful local event and I am disappointed to hear the temple will not be able to operate as in years past. It smacks of overly zealous enforcement. I can’t help but wonder if some wealthy neighbors complained about the crowds and noise and are using the city as their attack dog.
How ridiculous this is! Separate building permits for each structure being built, that means more money for the City’s pockets. I think it’s despicable how the City is ruining a great Japanese tradition that the entire City benefits from. I bet if it was Google hosting it, there would be no problem!
Bureaucracy run amok. Very sad. This has always been a wonderful family event. With urbanization and super wealth, I guess we’ll lose every down-home, old-fashioned tradition that has made our neighborhoods so special.
I have no problem when existing laws are enforced. It may seem unreasonable to some people for various reasons, but it doesn’t make it right. If and when an bad incident happens, the same people who are against this will turn around and start blaming the city for making this event violate the regulations for all these years and this is bound to happen, blah blah. Laws and regulations are enacted for the protection of ppl however imperfect they may be in current form and they need to be enforced when possible.
I’ve been to this festival many times and it was never crowded and never an issue. The best thing they can do now is just go over to Subway and get a few sandwiches and bags of chips for everyone.
My guess is there’s a mosque ready to move in and they want those trouble-making Buddhists out of there.
Why don’t they just park a fire truck there?
Do the food booths at the Art & Wine festival operate under these same regulations? Those are wooden booths with lots of cooking going on.
A permit for EACH structure? That’s just ridiculous.
How dumb can our city get? We encourage ever more bowel spewing RV’s on to our streets but god forbid we let Japanese people celebrate their culture!
The MV Fire Department’s should be ashamed of themselves. Let’s see them downsize their own fundraising Pancake Breakfast this fall. That dangerously overcrowded lousy excuse for a get together should be shut down. You think they will hold themselves to the same standard? I doubt it.
Things they should focus on:
– These bicycle rentals clogging all the sidewalks and blocking handicap access.
– Tons of people smoking cigarettes on Castro even though it’s supposedly illegal.
– Tons of scofflaws crossing the street any place other than the crosswalk downtown.
– Too many people playing very loud instruments/boomboxes downtown.
I will be watching VERY CLOSELY to see if these laws are enforced equally for other events in the city, like Oktoberfest and the Art & Wine Festival
@Otto_Maddox (resident of Monta Loma) wrote:
“66 years of safe operation should be plenty of evidence the planners of this event know how to do hold a fun and safe event.”
@More RVs Please (resident of Old Mountain View) wrote:
“We encourage ever more bowel spewing RV’s on to our streets but god forbid we let Japanese people celebrate their culture!”
Sixty-six years in Mountain View is nothing.
I hope someone from the City of Mountain View is reading this.
Look at the big picture. There are thousands of obon festivals in Japan each year, going back centuries. The population is 126 million and I’m willing to guess that most people attend an Obon festival at least once a year, let’s say 100+ million attendees. Over a ten year span, that’s a billion Obon attendees enjoying the traditional foods, activities, etc.
Remember, this isn’t just a foodie festival, taiko exhibition or an excuse to get drunk, it’s a 500+ year old Buddhist tradition to pay respects to your dead ancestors like a midsummer Dia de los Muertos. The Japanese have plenty of love for old traditions, ancestors, etc. and they’ve kept up these customs over centuries.
And little ol’ Mountain View thinks this is “too dangerous”?
Japan figured it out.
Where’s the common sense or is that something else we need to import too?
So let me get this right….City backs off these “recreational vehicles” that are horrendous to look at, suck up our tax dollars for rediculous social service “pilot programs” and are a hazard with all the leaking oil or sewage, yet we get strict with a festival that has never been an issue?! Outrageous!!!!!!!!! This over liberal city needs to wake up!
Went today as we do every year. Yeah, it’s a bummer that there’s no tempura but other that & the canopies, we saw no difference. My guess is they will make about as much $$ as they usually do & that this is much ado about nothing. We’ll be going back tomorrow too so we’re doing our part.
We went Saturday evening at 7pm. While I waited at the booth outside for noodles, I talked with the staff in the booth. They told me some of the particulars that the city cracked down on. Here are the items I recall:
1. They cannot use their old booths because they are wooden. Only metal or plastic is allowed. The old booths are 12 feet long, maximum width permitted is 10 feet long.
2. The stage where dancers perform: It is about 4 feet high with steps. The city wanted them to provide an elevator! I didn’t walk around the entire stage last night, but I didn’t see an elevator on the three sides that I did look at. The public does not come up on this stage, so maybe they were granted a variance?
3. The temple used to use PG&E natural gas to do the cooking outside. They had pipe extenders or something. Now they must use propane tanks.
4. Udon: They cannot keep the udon hot at the station inside the gym building. They must cook it up and serve it immediately. Hence the reason for the udon coming in waves last night. I heard announcements every so often that a new batch of udon was ready.
My God! Who decided to throw the book at them? I’ve been to Thailand, Bangkok and Chiang Mai. The street food and night markets are a delight! The code enforcers would faint at the sight!
This is what happens when you elect liberal Democrats to run the city… a bunch of elitists that know what’s best for you. You voted for the “nanny state”, this is what you get.
I went to the festival this afternoon (Sun) and there was only half of the attendance they had last year. The grass field parking lot next to the main site wasn’t even full to capacity. The crowd was low, lines were short and quick to get food, but none of the good stuff was there anymore. Luckily however Shaved ice doesn’t require any type of cooking. Don’t let any bonehead complain about that booth or else.
Whoever said it was time to set some restrictions to the festival probably got in line last year for Spam Musubi only to find they ran out. Now they are doing this in backlash against the festival.
I like how someone commented about having the fire dept. just park a truck there. I’m sure it would have been the best way to bring awareness that not only fire safety would be in the area in case of such an event and also the kids would have had a great time taking pictures next to the truck and also with the friendly firemen. What a shame!!
1) There were significantly fewer booths
2) It looked like the beer/sake booth was gone. Did I just miss it
3) It closed earlier this year. The event was so pretty and fun to stroll around after dark.
Were all of these changes due to the city? The article just mentions new layout and loss of tempura. This sounds like they were trying to scale down its popularity and attendees.
Sad to see this nonsense yet we see rvs, drug selling at anphitheater, fights etc, This city is a hypocrite!
We had a very nice time and it was SO nice without the throngs of people clogging everything.
Professional gripers and identity politics geeks should still reply though.
So sad and disappointing to see this happen to a long-running community event that only happens one weekend a year.
Will it take the city 66 years to address the chronic parking of motor homes on city streets and the homeless residing along the Stevens Creek Trail?
Man, there’s nothing traditional like Spam musubi!
I’m mixed on this … can’t have gas lines running everywhere, one person gets burned and people will ask how this was allowed to happen …
I grew up in Mountain View and attending the Obon Festival with my Family remains a warm memory from my youth. It is so sad to see such an important event with over 65 years of tradition to honor family, ancestors & community to be “regulated” by the city for “safety” purposes. Not allowing the making of traditional foods, booths to be made of wood, charging per structure is punitive and petty for such an affluent city to squeeze out cash from a church fund raiser. The church community has been doing this for generations with not cataclysmic results. Not every org has the money and infrastructure as Google, Mtn View officials seem to forget what made their community a great place in the first place. I am proud to say I was born in Mtn View yet glad I don’t live in a community with such weak leadership. Should they plan for tariffs next year on their condiments of imported soy sauce? Come on Mt View Leadership have use some common sense and focus on what is really important!
I have been attending this Obon festival ever since I was 10, in 1965. So this year I attended and wondered where all the people were as I noticed a lot less people. And I also noticed the food served was also a lot less than usual. Well now I found out by reading the article.
All I have to say is HOW SAD
HEY! to A Talking Cat… if the logic of your “what if” stance was the norm in this world we’d still be living in caves and eating raw meat and plants. Try opening the lid of that box and thinking outside of it. The Obon is a proven event, decades old with sufficent skills to manage the risks. This enforcement of law seems arbitrary and unacceptable to me. City should make its process and rationales transparent to all of us.
It’s really pushing things to call these wooden booths buildings. Are they truly made from scratch each year? Are they stored and just put up the next year? What makes them count as buildings vs. booth.
For the electrical, there are a lot of new LED lighting solutions that can run on low voltage power or batteries. For gas grills, there’s always propane. I’m not so sure that propane would face the same issues building-permit wise. I think that’s how these stalls at the art and wine festival work.
Next on the horizon…stricter limitations on the seasonal cioppino & crab fests held across the street.
The downtown restaurants are probably behind this measure because it cuts into their business.
The essence of local community festivals is the decades of traditions that are passed on to each generation. As a father, my hope is that the cultural values our ancestors have taught us will be transferred to my children. In today’s ever increasing artificial world, annual family events like the Obon festival give us a real-life opportunity to teach our kids the importance of working together as a community like making Udon noodles from scratch, preparing musubi with the temple elders, cooking & cooling rice for thousands of people in a weekend.
Yes, things do change but the fact is community organizations like MVBT are being asked to scale back to the point where there is nothing left to pass on to our children other than how to order take out from out of town catering companies in order to keep the festival going. As a local resident, I wish we could see more common sense regulations that emphasize important values from our ancestors and elders rather than blanket regulations.
P.s bring back dime pitch 🙂
Fact is that some folks in Mountain View get to ignore laws…the rest of us are not afforded this allowance.
@It was fine
It’s a fundraising event for the MVBT in addition to a cultural celebration. Throngs of people are the point.
w/o large numbers of festival attendees MVBT makes less money.
For a mega Obon festival with no holds barred, how about if the PA & MV temples combined their efforts & held it at SHORELINE!
No parking problems, easily bike-able and plenty of space.
A Mexican ‘Day of the Dead’ festival held at Shoreline would also be kind of cool.
The Mountain View Fire Inspectors, especially the new guys, are a little too “code zealous.” They need to balance their academic inspections with some common sense experience.
Maybe they could have a community booth building event where we could all help donate materials and build booths that meet the current codes? We’ve always enjoyed Obon at the MV Buddhist Temple although we were out of town this year, so I didn’t personally see how bad it was. Sad to loose the old booths and be left with a lot of characterless EZ-ups like all of the Art & Wine festivals.
In response to “it was fine”. Most people don’t realize that the Obon festival is the one major fund-raiser for the temple each year. Without these funds, the temple won’t survive. I don’t have the numbers yet, but it will be at most 50% of previous years. Every set-up and process there is checked and double or triple checked by volunteers and directors. The systems they have in place are flawless. That’s why it’s worked for 66 years. The City of Mt View should be embarrassed. I’m grateful that I live in Sunnyvale.
Hello
So after 66 years of successful events without major issues, the city decides to step in a protect us from nothing.
Yay unnecessary and overbearing regulations.
Yeah but if there WERE some incident that caused crowds of people to be injured or worse, everyone would be up in arms, screaming “WHY DID THE CITY ALLOW THIS?”
Can’t please everyone…
Laws have to be REASONABLE. When they aren’t reasonable they should be ignored.. better yet repealed.
To anyone who disagrees I dare you to tell me you have never exceeded a speed limit. Did you immediately turn yourself into the first cop you saw? Of course you didn’t.
66 years of safe operation should be plenty of evidence the planners of this event know how to do hold a fun and safe event.
Per “reader’s” comment, park a fire truck there…just like other major events in MV. As a kid, I attended my first MV Obon Festival sixty years ago, an experience that positively affected my attitude toward Japanese-Americans and Buddhism. Since then, I have attended Obon Festival in Yoyogi Park, in Tokyo, and was surprised to find essentially the same down-home atmosphere as MV’s event. Hopefully, the MV event organizers find a way to deal with “impermanence,” yet retain the same laid back ambiance.
@It was fine
Throngs of people is the whole idea. It’s a damn fundraiser!
Such a sad state of affairs in Mountain View.
Does Live Nation has been asked to downsize their event because of the many violations associated with Shoreline Concerts, drunk patrons, traffic issues, Arrests and voilations of the noise ordinance, these are ongoing issues and NOTHING is done about them other than a slap on the wrist.
The Obon Festival has been onging for DECADES, a Mountain View tradition. The City should have worked with them well in advance to work out any issues, “building inspectors required the festival to obtain separate building permits for each booth structure.” How about the City inspectors focus on the massive developments overtaking our city rather than a Buddhist Temple Fundraiser.
The city was off base on this. I plan to make a donation to the Temple, I was unable to attend this year, so will donate to help with their loss of revenue. I suggest the City inspectors do the same. https://secure.qgiv.com/for/mvbt