The annual Westport Downtown Merchants Association (WDMA) Fine Arts Festival will return to Main Street this summer after a nine-year hiatus in Parker-Harding Plaza.

Crowds pack Westport’s Main Street in 2007, the last time the Fine Arts Festival was held there. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) WestportNow.com photo

The Board of Selectmen voted unanimously today to approve use of town property on Main Street, Elm Street, and Church Lane for the event on the weekend of July 15 and 16.

The last time the festival was on Main Street was in 2007. Since then, it has used areas of the Parker-Harding parking area as well as the adjacent Gorham Island office building for the event.

Randy Hebertson, WDMA president, told the board its members suggested the move back to Main Street. He said merchants felt they really were not benefitting from the event with only the back of their stores facing the riverside exhibits.

By Susan Granger

Bill Gates once said, “Banking is necessary, banks are not.” Which may be why bankers and banks have become popular cinematic villains, like the hapless brothers in last year’s “Hell or High Water.”

In “Going in Style,” three Brooklyn-based seniors suddenly realize that — because of a nefarious local bank — they’re going to be broke and homeless.

Joe (Michael Caine) comes up with the idea of an armed robbery after conferring with a sleazy Williamsburg Savings Bank manager (Josh Pais) about his adjustable mortgage that has suddenly tripled, threatening him, his divorced daughter and beloved granddaughter with foreclosure and eviction.

Joined by longtime friends Willie (Morgan Freeman) and Al (Alan Arkin), Joe then discovers that Wechsler Steel, where they’ve all worked for years, has outsourced to Vietnam and their pensions will be confiscated by the same Williamsburg Savings Bank.

Joe Sullivan of Derby and Kathy Lee of Seymour dance today to the sounds of Eight to the Bar at the Westport Center for Senior Activities. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) J.C. Martin for WestportNow.com