I don't get public holidays off, so it doesn't add anything for me to take leave then (and if I do I lose out on penalty rates, so would prefer to work anyway). I do get next year's sick leave credited mid April though, so I technically could get a much longer break by taking it then.
If you don't feel you can enjoy a street party without money that is an indictment on society, not you. These sorts of events should be a community celebration that everyone can be a part of, and in the past they were. Buying things used to be an extra option, not the core part of festivities, but our society has moved more and more towards making everything about just shopping in slightly different ways. As a society we seem to have lost any ability to have social connections without spending money - we meet in shops and restaurants, and more and more often we are expected to pay for "experiences", whereas once we would have met in people's homes and experiences were just things that happened to us, not something to buy.
But annoying customers often do get discounts for stupid reasons. Shops deal with a lot of volume and losing a bit of markup to get rid of a PITA can make sense, and they are often run by management with a "customer is always right" attitude. But for an individual the dynamic is very different, being a pain to deal with is more likely to get you blocked.
Probably not, because at home I can break myself away to do something else when I realise I've been wallowing too much. At work I'm often stuck at my desk with not much happening and I can't do anything else much because I am "monitoring", but there's not enough to do to keep me fully occupied so I end up mindlessly scrolling reddit and things.