After all of the preparation and anticipation, the Republican National Convention finally started Monday in Cleveland.
The Beacon Journal has reporters and photographers in and around Cleveland to report on what’s happening. This story will be updated throughout the day, so check back often to find out the latest.
5:30 p.m.
Open carry is causing confusion among officers trying to sort out who is law enforcement and who is a protester.
Just after 5 p.m., there were reports of twelve men with long guns ‑ some with body armor ‑ walking west over the Detroit-Superior bridge spanning the Cuyahoga River. The bridge links downtown to the Ohio City neighborhood.
Law enforcement said the group could be one of their tactical units, but before they figured it out, there was another report: Two men with long guns and binoculars climbing the scaffolding of a downtown bridge overlooking Settler’s Landing in The Flats. It was unclear which bridge.
At 5:40, neither report appeared resolved, according to chatter among law enforcement on police radios.
Meanwhile, police were headed to E. 4th Street and Euclid Avenue for reports of “anarchists getting their gear on.”
4:11 p.m.
Want to pretend the RNC isn’t happening?
Gogobot, an app for personalized recommendations on the best places to stay, eat and play, has put out a special “Cleveland Edition GoGo This Week” that focuses on where residents can go to some “political detox.”
Their suggestions:
• Cuyahoga Valley National Park, best for “biking away political trauma.”
• Cedar Point or Kings Island, best for “replacing the thrill of Trump’s hair and ideas about immigration with the thrill of a roller coaster.”
• Amish Country, best for “harkening back to simpler days before superpacs and tweeting.”
• Hocking Hills State Park, best for “sweating out the politics on a steep climb.”
• Geneva wineries, best for “getting a hangover worse than the political one people will have after this election.”
• Or even Cincinnati, best for “pretending to not be in Ohio or near the convention at all.”
— Paula Schleis
3:47 p.m.
Located an hour’s drive from the actual RNC, Josh Shory had little reason to expect his restaurant would benefit from the affair.
But with 50,000 additional people expected to be spending the week in Northeast Ohio, the RNC’s reach filtered all the way down to Lucca Restaurant, a small, elegant eaterie in Canton’s art district.
Lucca will be catering lunch for 200 delegates on Wednesday, so on Monday employees began preparations, blanching asparagus, brining chicken and mixing the ingredients for a barbecue dry rub. West Side Bakery, with shops in Green and Akron, will provide the chocolate cake and cheesecake dessert.
Lucca was tapped for the job by the historic Onesto in Canton, a facility that was built in 1929 as a high-end hotel and has hosted the likes of Al Capone, Ike and Tina Turner, and Mimi Eisenhower. It was also Ground Zero for the planning of the construction of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
This week, Onesto will add to its legacy by hosting RNC delegates that are sightseeing at local attractions that include the hall of fame, the First Ladies Museum and the William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum.
Onesto operations manager Chuck Shuster said the delegates will dine in the facility’s recently-renovated and stunning ballroom.
And Shory is thrilled to have been tapped for the job of feeding the hungry tourists.
“We were lucky to get connected for this,” he said.
— Paula Schleis
1:30 p.m.
Sweet treats
You don’t have to be an official RNC vendor to cash in on the big event.
Matt Lee, co-owner of Sweet Frog franchises in Stow, Fairlawn and Green, said he added staff and ordered extra inventory because hundreds of delegates and their families and RNC staff are staying in hotels near his frozen yogurt stores.
Combined with this week’s heat it’s “a perfect storm” for the ice cream business.
“There’s a lot of buzz and energy going on in Cleveland and Akron as a whole — the Cavs’ championship, the Indians doing well, downtown revivals. Now, you get this,” Lee said in an interview at the Fairlawn store Monday.
People love sweet treats when they are happy, Lee said.
“The great thing about our model is they also eat ice cream if they’re sad,” he said.
— Paula Schleis
1 p.m.
Peace prayers
Two men rang the buzzer at the large wooden door that marks the entrance to the convent chapel at Our Lady of the Elms in Akron.
“Welcome,” Sister Dorothy says as she steps aside to let them in.
The men joined another 10 people in prayer.
People can pray at the chapel this way every day — regular mass is said at 5 p.m. daily. But, on Monday, the nuns put out a special call for prayers for peace.
“There’s such negativism and such gun play going on everywhere that we worry about what might happen” at the RNC in Cleveland, said Sister Bernadine. “Even peaceful marches can take a wrong turn.”
Gene Waples, 83, made the trip up from Uniontown.
“I thought it was beautiful,” Waples said of the idea of the community prayer. “With all this trouble we’re having in the country, I wish they’d just get that settled.”
Sister Bernadine said as far as she knew, all of the churches in the West Akron neighborhood were open for the same purpose.
— Paula Schleis
12:15 p.m.
Muslim girl speaks
She’s got a contagious smile, sporting braces like many of her peers, and has spent half of her 17 years of life in America.
But Sondos Mishal of Stow said her daily life is different than her friends in one significant way: As a Muslim, she has to constantly be aware of her surroundings, she worries about being in parking lots alone, and when she leaves a cafe in the evening after a study session, her personal safety is “always in the back of my mind — that someone could be coming for me.”
On Monday, Mishal was the first of several Akron area residents scheduled to speak to media in Cleveland this week, an effort organized by Summit County Progressive Democrats.
“I want people to understand that Muslims are just ordinary citizens and how Trump’s views are affecting other people. He’s legitimizing other people’s attitudes about Muslims and that’s affecting their daily lives,” said Sondos, who attends Akron Early College High School. “The attitude always existed but it wasn’t as strong as before because there’s a presidential candidate that’s strong in his views about this.”
Sondos’ family immigrated to the United States for Palestine nine years ago.
Asked if a president could make a difference in that attitude, Sondos said: “I personally would feel less safe if Trump was president.”
The local Democratic organization will be introducing other activists to media in a conference room off Public Square.
Tuesday, they will present two female Ohio state legislators who say it’s harder to fight for women’s rights in a Republican-led state legislature, and a teacher and union official who will speak out against charter schools.
On Wednesday, SCPD will offer to media an attorney, state legislator and a homeless advocate who have been fighting attempts to suppress some voters, and a family physician who became an environmental activist after seeing the impact of poor environmental regulation on the health of his patients.
In addition to meeting Mishal on Monday, media were invited to interview Robert Grow, a minister who has led pro-gun control demonstrations during gun shows at the Summit County Fairgrounds.
“I am a chaplain who in a five-year span of my career... has had to minister to seven families whose children were killed with guns,” he said. “And that’s the reason I took up this cause.”
Noon
‘Hillary for Prison’ Ts
Hundreds of people are attending a pro-Donald Trump rally at Settler’s Landing, a park in downtown Cleveland.
The rallygoers wearing ‘Hillary for Prison’ T-shirts outnumber those sporting ‘Trump for President’ T-shirts in the crowd that is almost entirely white, a sharp contrast to the anti-Trump march and rally Sunday evening that was racially diverse.
An event organizer asked a woman to hold a Trump sign. She accepted, adding, “I love my country!”
“Me too ma’am,” the organizer said.
— Nick Glunt
11:15 a.m.
What convention?
Five people from Germany stopped by the Destination Cleveland Visitors Center Sunday with no idea that the convention was happening this week, according to a briefing Monday morning from the convention’s host committee.
Volunteers at the visitor’s center suggested the Germans visit attractions in the neighborhoods, such as the West Side Market, and perhaps the Cleveland Museum of Art, in case the downtown scene was too crowded for them.
A man named Grover Cleveland also stopped by the visitors center. To prove he has the same name as the 22nd/24th U.S. president, he showed his driver’s license to volunteers.
In all, 130 people visited the visitor’s center Sunday, according to the briefing.
— Stephanie Warsmith
10:30 a.m.
Hospital prepared
Akron City Hospital is prepared in the event of a disaster during the convention this week that requires people to be transported to the hospital.
In case this happens, the hospital issued a press release Monday morning with instructions for where media should park, assemble and gather to receive updates.
— Stephanie Warsmith
9:30 a.m.
Delegate breakfast
The first Ohio delegation breakfast honored late former Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett, with a portrait of Bennett greeting delegates at the door.
Joe Hockey, the U.S. ambassador to Australia, spoke during the breakfast about the draw of American ideas.
“America is great,” he said.
Hockey got a standing ovation when he asked the Ohio delegates to affirm democracy, free trade and immigration.
The media were asked to leave while the delegates were briefed on security issues during the convention.
— Doug Livingston
Hudson florist
While newly arrived delegates were still eating breakfast Monday morning, area florists were turning the Q into a warm and welcoming greenspace.
At 8 a.m. Monday morning, a refrigerated truck filled with flowers and foliage left The Greenhouse Florist in Hudson headed for Cleveland.
It was one of six florists in Northeast Ohio chosen to offer services to convention-goers, a designation earned after a special vendor day that allowed delegations, organizations and others to narrow down the businesses offering services this week.
“There was no guarantee we’d even get orders, though it was an honor just being selected as one of the six,” manager Jean Considine said. The Greenhouse Florist has been in business for 41 years, that last 21 under owner Gregg Lauck.
But the orders came: Arrangements for the chairman’s suite, the chief of staff’s suite, the Republican Governors Association lounge, the backstage waiting room, U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell’s suite, even a bathroom.
Employees spent the better part of Sunday preparing the arrangements, which ranged from 7-foot palms to 3x3 cubes of greenery.
While arrangements ordered for back stage have a red-white-and-blue theme, Considine said most of her clients at the convention preferred the “clean and crisp look” of green and white — white and green hydrangeas, white roses, dianthus, lisianthus, willow branches and aurelia leaves.
— Paula Schleis