No Nuts in Nelsonville

The NUTmobile has visited 48 states over the past year. (Photo by Ross Corsair)

Mayor sends Mr. Peanut packing

The NUTmobile, sponsored by Planters Peanuts, made an abbreviated stop in Nelsonville on Saturday (May 13) before being asked to move along.

The 26-foot vehicle was scheduled to rendezvous with a New York City hiking group at the Nelsonville trailhead. But one of its three drivers, Grace Tessitore, said they were told they could not park there. Instead, they met the hikers on Main Street, where the parked NUTmobile turned far more heads.

One resident took a photo with his phone and it rapidly received more than 100 "likes" on the Philipstown Locals Facebook group. A mailman stopped by and was given bags of nuts to distribute to co-workers. And the spectacle may have contributed to a fender-bender near Village Hall by distracting a driver. After hearing the crash, Michael Bowman, the former mayor, offered his driveway to the NUTmobile, but soon Mayor Chris Winward arrived and said the vehicle needed a permit.

"If the truck had requested a permit we would have worked with the sheriff's office to find a safe place for them to park, rather than so close to the intersection," Winward said on Wednesday.

"The peanut truck was also part of an unauthorized trail-running event that set up at the Nelsonville Woods trailhead," she said. "Another vendor, Salomon sporting goods, set up a pop-up tent on village property in front of the emergency access gate. They worked together with a nonprofit hiking group from the city."

Winward said that Nelsonville requires that organizers of any event held on its property temporarily add the village to its insurance but, in this case, "they did not ask for permission. I believe this entrance to the trail was chosen because the Breakneck trailhead is closed. To my knowledge, we’ve never had a corporate-sponsored event happen there before."

Tessitore said she and her two companion "Peanuters" have been traveling in the NUTmobile for nearly a year through 48 states but had never been asked to leave. "Although we had to shorten our visit, we enjoyed the brief time we had meeting some people in Nelsonville!" she wrote in an email.

Ross Corsair contributed reporting.