Olfactory KC - To Heck with Folgers - Let's Come to Our Scents

Kansas Citians are disappointed to hear that the Folger's Plant will be decamping to New Orleans. Some PR opportunists are even mounting a futile Facebook campaign to get the plant to stay, and thousands of the gullible have joined. Kansas City doesn't want to lose that aroma.

Viewed correctly, this is not a civic loss, it is a civic opportunity.

Kansas City could be the first major American city to choose its own scents to match its mood. And we could do it for a minuscule fraction of the money that we spend on other schemes that produce far less obvious results.

The science of scents has progressed a long way, and Kansas City could be unique in embracing the opportunity presented. With a few industrial sized scent diffusers placed strategically throughout the city, we could choose our scent day by day, to reflect our mood and our agenda.

There are thousands of choices. Imagine the scent of gunpowder filling the air on Independence Day. Cotton candy when the circus comes to town. Horse manure on days when the Jackson County legislature is in session. Sulfur when the Raiders are in town. The possibilities are endless.

A quick online check shows that you can easily find thousands of scent varieties for $120/gallon - you could probably get it cheaper if you did it by competitive bidding. Figure 20 gallons of this potent stuff sprinkled throughout the downtown loop would be a heavy dose - we might be able to get by with less. Multiply that by 365 days a year, and you come up with a total of $876,000 - an embarrassingly small total for a civic initiative in this town. Add in the capital cost of 20 gigantic scent diffusers, (I don't know - maybe $10,000 each?) and you barely clear a million dollars - civic chump change. We could even repurpose those Sky Stations . . .

Compare this to the millions and millions we're spending on the Power and Light District, and you will see that we can replace Folgers' aroma at a fraction of the cost, and there wouldn't be racially-charged dress codes to deal with. And maybe, if we're lucky, this investment would distract those city council people who are foolishly considering a disastrous multi-million dollar risky investment in a useless downtown convention hotel. (Something smells really bad about that deal.)