PopUp NH drops 2021 plans as Portsmouth arts scene eyes big summer seacoastonline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from seacoastonline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
PORTSMOUTH – PopUp NH’s request to use the city-owned Worth parking lot for the second season of its outdoor performance and food venue is headed to a city committee for review.
The City Council voted 6-3 to send the request to the newly formed Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Committee on Arts and Non-Profits.
PopUp NH operated last year in the nearby Bridge Street parking lot, offering food and other vendors and entertainment as a way to help businesses make more revenue during the coronavirus pandemic. This year, the group is seeking to hold a six-month second season in the Worth lot beginning on May 1.
PORTSMOUTH On New Year’s Eve, the city’s two new ordinances banning single-use disposable plastic and polystyrene, more commonly known as Styrofoam, went into effect. Only one, however, is being immediately enforced by city officials.
Bert Cohen, chair of Portsmouth’s sustainability committee, said with a spirit of goodwill and public compliance with the ordinances, the city is headed in the right direction toward creating a greener environment.
To continue doing so, he said, “We all need to be systems thinkers.”
“I’m aware that there are many bioplastics being produced and experimented with and they will obviously have their upsides and downsides, but we can use cellulose to make plastics which will be biodegradable,” he said. “By moving off fossil fuel-based plastic, which is what Styrofoam is, if we went to a biofuel produced by natural cellulose, in five years we might have products that we can put in natural gardens that can decompose. That would be a