On October 19th, The Philadelphia Inquirer published an article about Ambler’s success that, from 10,000 feet, is extraordinary. However, on the street, there are concerns, and at least some local business owners are reluctant to air their grievances publicly. Some want to just let it be and not be the one making noise. Some fear retribution.

Due to the reluctance of those impacted to talk publicly, AroundAmbler.com filed a right-to-know request for emails surrounding Oktoberfest.

First, we receive numerous calls and emails that send us on fishing expeditions. We often hear, “You won’t believe what was done,” and we conduct research, which most often reveals something that wasn’t what we were told, or it leads to a dead end with no way to validate the story. We have three local news sites, each serving a different area of Montgomery County. This is true for all three, not specific to Ambler.

In this case, we heard that Ambler Main Street was requiring the local makers of alcohol products (the two breweries, one distillery, and one winery on Butler Avenue) to pay a $1,000 per event “beverage sponsorship” for Oktoberfest and Music Fest. If they didn’t pay it, Ambler Main Street was going to place one of the many exhibitor/vendor booths that make up part of the event in front of the businesses on the street (thus blocking the view of said business from the crowd).

AroundAmbler.com has verified that this is indeed true for at least one business. On September 24, 2025, Ambler Main Street President Bob King sent an email to an alcohol producer/restaurant on Butler Avenue. That email sought to confirm the sponsorship and outlined the ramifications of not paying it.

You are probably asking yourself why Ambler Main Street requires these businesses to pay. The four businesses all appear to be members of Ambler Main Street (based on the Ambler Main Street website). There are many businesses along Butler Avenue that are not members and do not have to pay anything to set up outside for the events.

We had been told by several people that Ambler Main Street felt these businesses cut into the revenue generated by the beer garden set up for Oktoberfest (and Music Fest in the spring). The beer garden is a partnership between Ambler Main Street at the Ambler Rotary, which can secure a special occasion permit through the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board and sell beer, wine, and distilled beverages during the event. The two organizations split the money, with each using it for its own programs and community support.

Our efforts to get two people to confirm this failed, but then Bob King went to a recent borough council meeting and confirmed it during a presentation on Ambler Main Street. Below is the relevant portion of King’s presentation. You can view the whole meeting and King’s full presentation here.

During his presentation, King discusses the beer garden’s history and how it operates. He then goes on to state, when referencing the revenue generated by the beer garden, that the sale of alcohol by the two breweries, the distillery, and the winery has “ultimately undercut the monies that Main Street received.” Below is the transcript of this portion of the presentation. Please note this is lightly edited for clarity.

Lately, this return has lessened. Several years ago, a couple of businesses in town, Forest & Main [Brewing Company], Tannery [Brew Works], Stone & Key [Cellars], and Widows Peak [Distilling Company], they began outside sales at the events. Now this, in and of itself, isn’t a problem, and in fact, this is kind of what we want. They provide a variety. They’re brick and mortars in the event. The event is there to build the town. So great, except they undercut the sales that Rotary did [at the beer garden], which ultimately undercut the monies that Main Street received. So to deal with this, we had a little meeting of the principals, and I suggested, as the Main Street person in the meeting, that we come up with a beverage sponsorship of $1,000 per event for these entities.

I did the math on the sales that they took from us [the beer garden]. So I knew that that was a light number. I knew that they were taking significantly more than a thousand dollars a piece from Rotary, and the parties that were in that meeting agreed to that. It was set up as a donation to Main Street so that they could do the whole tax thing. Okay. I mean, consult a tax attorney, but this is pretty sure you can write that stuff off. Unfortunately, lately several of these people have reneged on this. So, we’re going to have to revisit this again.

Concerns expressed by those we spoke with are that Ambler businesses shouldn’t be required to pay a sponsorship fee to take advantage of the events, given that the beer garden is in itself competing with the 365-a-day brick-and-mortar establishments.

Those we spoke with were most concerned as to why Ambler Main Street was threatening to place a vendor on the street front of a brick-and-mortar business during the event. The brick-and-mortar is a tax paying business. The vendors are charged $150 to be at the event.

There were also questions about why the products from the local breweries weren’t sold at the beer garden. For example, all the beer was sourced from outside the borough. The beer garden did sell some wine from Stone & Key.

Is there a conflict of interest? During King’s full presentation, he states that he had been a member of the Rotary when the beer garden was started, and while not currently a member, continues to support the organization. Liz Kunzier, the Ambler Main Street Manager, is a current member of the Rotary Club in Ambler.

King declined to answer questions posed by AroundAmbler.com for this article. Also declining were Mayor Jeanne Sorg and Council President Glynnis Siskind. The mayor and the council president are ex officio board members of the Ambler Main Street, as stated in its bylaws. We also asked all the council members if they would like to address the issue, and we received no response. King also did not offer Ambler Main Street tax documents and meeting minutes that we requested.

While the president of the Ambler Rotary did not respond to our inquiry, Rotarian Kate Harper, who is involved with the beer garden, shared that the Rotary was aware that Ambler Main Street sought sponsorships but did not have any details about them and stressed that the money raised goes back into the community.

Please note that the Facebook page Ambler Lame Street posted on November 7th essentially what we reported above. We do not know who is behind that page. We have been working on this article for some time. For example, we filed a right-to-know to obtain the email we shared in this article on October 14th.

More to come.

Let us know what you think in the comments.