PATRIOT BREMERTON
kitsapweek Robert Burns Night J a n u a r y 2 0 - 2 6 , 2 012
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Kelly Groh of the New Year Beer Festival promotes the event on YouTube.
BREMERTON’S NEW YEAR BEER FESTIVAL JAN. 22
BREMERTON — The New Year Beer Festival welcomes 15 local craft breweries to the waterfront Jan. 22, with proceeds benefitting Coffee Oasis’ community outreach programs. The event is presented by Fritz European Fry House and a consortium of West Sound brewers. The festival will showcase premium, handcrafted beers from 15 area breweries, including a new Doppelbock from Battenkill Brewing Company, a new Double Black Imperial Stout from Der Blokken Brewery, and award-winning selections from Hale’s Ales, Silver City Brewery and other participating breweries. The New Year Beer Festival will be held at the Kitsap Conference Center, next to the ferry terminal in downtown Bremerton. Two tasting sessions are planned: noon to 3 p.m., and 4–7 p.m. Tickets are $30 in advance and $35 at the door. Cost of entry includes eight samplesize drink tickets and a commemorative glass. A limited number of tickets are available; for tickets and details, visit www. newyearbeerfestival.com. “Puget Sound has one of the nation’s fastest growing and most diverse craft beer communities, and this festival is an
You don’t have to be Scottish to enjoy the music, the poetry (or the haggis) BY ERIN JENNINGS Kitsap Week
I
f “Auld Lang Syne” has been referred to as “the most famous song that no one knows the words to,” then is the songwriter just as obscure? Not at all. Robert Burns, the Scottish poet and lyricist who penned the famed song that is sung—or at least muddled through— each New Year’s, is celebrated annually around his Jan. 25 birthday. Robert Burns Nights are held across the globe, including here in Kitsap. Burns, who lived in Scotland from
Above, celebrants enjoy a traditional Scottish dance at Robert Burns Night in 2010. The anniversary of the poet’s birth will be celebrated in Bremerton and Poulsbo. Background, the best-known portrait Contributed of Burns, by Alexander Nasmyth, 1787.
Syne,” into songs. Other popular works 1759-1796, is known as “Scotland’s by Burns include “A Red, Red Rose” favorite son.” The farmer turned poet wrote about daily life on the farm, rela- and “To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up tionships, and Scottish fare. He turned in Her Nest with the Plough.” many of his poems, like “Auld Lang See BURNS, Page 2
See BEER FEST, Page 3
KITSAP WEEK Scottish nights’, music, poetry & haggus. New Year Beer fest. Inside
A section of the Bainbridge Island Review | Bremerton Patriot | Central Kitsap Reporter | North Kitsap Herald | Port Orchard Independent
FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2012 | Vol. 13, No. 52 WWW.BREMERTONPATRIOT.COM | 50¢
Some Bremerton homeless choose camps over shelters’ warmth Snow falls and many homeless men and women can’t, won’t seek aid BY JJ SWANSON JSWANSON@SOUNDPUBLISHING.COM
Greg Skinner/staff photo
One driver makes the grade as another spins helplessly in the ditch at the bottom of 1st Street in Bremerton Wednesday.
Light traffic, bad commute Government largely closed, authorities say people staying home helped ease effects BY GREG SKINNER AND JJ SWANSON GSKINNER@SOUNDPUBLISHING.COM
Schools and local governments didn’t open and the U.S. Navy scaled back its operations, but Katie Mairs was at her post in the Bremerton Safeway Starbucks at 5:50 a.m. serving coffee to the few who came in from the storm. “I feel kind of like the mailman,” Mairs said. Commuting to Bremerton from Poulsbo, Mairs beat what morning commute there was between 5 and 6 a.m., just a few hours after snow began to fall Wednesday in the first major storm of winter. The Post Office, however, was not quite as focused as Mairs. Wednesday’s snowfall of 6 to 8 inches sent mail service across the county into a “case by case” basis according to National Avenue Post Office postmaster, Dale Goforth. “[Mail carriers] look at the road and
if it looks like they might get there but might not be able to get back, they’re obviously not going to go,” Goforth said. Residents living on routes that have not been plowed or sanded should expect delays in receiving their mail. However, the postmaster believed that the full route should be restored in the next few days. Several cars lined the ditches on either side of the highway and spinouts occurred near every hill in the community. At 7:30 a.m. Kitsap Way and Callow Avenue were more passable than State Highway 3, which remained covered in compact snow and ice into the afternoon. One morning commuter braved the mess on a Harley Davidson motorcycle, pushing and spinning his way along Auto Center Boulevard. Rather than drive to work for her early morning shift Wednesday, East Bremerton resident Kristyn Byrney returned home wading through shindeep snow along Wheaton Way in light low-top sneakers and bobby socks. “It will hurt when I’m home and they thaw,” she said of her feet. Along with Bremerton schools, Central Kitsap School District decided to hold a snow day. Their website said,
Greg Skinner/staff photo
A semitrailer spins out as it follows cars over a hilltop near the Silverdale Mall exit on State Highway 3 Wednesday afternoon. weather and road conditions throughout the county are poor and are not SEE SNOW, A10
A hidden snow covered trail through the woods off Harlow Way in Bremerton opens to a camp home to at least a dozen homeless men and women. There are plastic tarps hanging over cut telephone wires which have been lashed between trees to form a frame. There is an area over a trash can for cooking and another for “bathrooms.” A winter storm has dropped six inches of snow on Bremerton with a forecasted accumulation of another inch or two per hour throughout the day Jan. 18, said Johnny Burg, meteorologist for the National Weather Service. Temperatures will be consistently below freezing. Severe weather shelters have made preparations, opening their doors to the homeless, offering sleeping pads, towels, toiletries and heat for guests. But individuals at the camp are choosing not to go. Low numbers at the shelters is a continuing mystery for emergency relief workers who see about one-third of the capacity used at any one time. “We know that the numbers of homeless in Bremerton are
much bigger than this,” said Jim Stowers, coordinator for Kitsap Community Resources. “We wonder why more people aren’t using the shelter.” The Severe Weather Shelter set up at the Bremerton Foodline has been open since last Tuesday, said Patti Peterson, executive director of the foodline. They have had 10 guests to fill their 27 available spots on some nights, but on others, such as Jan. 16, no guests showed up when the doors closed at 9 p.m., and all the volunteers went home. The top reasons for not going to shelters are worry of being controlled and being kicked out with no place to return, according to some living in the Bremerton camp. “They tell you when to eat, sleep, take a sh--. Then they’re gonna kick you out and you really got no place,” said Jessica, who has been homeless for more than four years and stayed brief ly at the Bremerton Salvation Army’s homeless shelter. Kenny agreed that he did not like the feeling of “being owned like a dog” because someone was giving him a place to stay. He added that SEE HOMELESS, A7