Security measures are seen as key factor in ensuring a good experience
BY CRAIG CROSBY
Staff Writer Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 08/31/2008

BY CRAIG CROSBY

Staff Writer

The implementation takes a lot of work, but the police officers who maintain safety at the Windsor Fair have a very simple goal.

"Our goal is to make sure the people who come to the Windsor Fair get their money's worth and have a good time," said Maj. Ken Mason of the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department. "If we find people ... taking away from the family environment, they have to go. We want people to come back."

Security gets a lot less play than the carnival rides or exhibits, but those who organize the state's fairs know that one of the most important factors in creating an enjoyable experience for their guests is ensuring they are safe.

"We call the fair a family tradition," said Thomas E. Foster, president of the Windsor Fair, which runs through Monday. "We stress the fact you can bring the family and not have to worry about it."

But securing a fairground involves more than just removing the rowdy element.

An armed robbery earlier this month at a gate at Skowhegan Fairgrounds, though unusual, highlights the fact that fair organizers also must protect the hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and property that passes through their gates every year.

At some fairs, including Windsor, that means a 24-hour police presence.

"I reminded (the officers) of the armed robbery in Skowhegan and that we need to be ever vigilant," Mason said. "There's a million dollars of merchandise here."

Many fairs protect that property by taking advantage of a state agricultural statute that allows fairs to swear in their own constables, which are typically defined as police officers with limited authority.

But other fairs use the statute to hire fully certified police officers who have completed the 18-week course at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy. Those fair employees have full authority to arrest, carry sidearms and conduct investigations.

Mason and his 22 officers, for example, were sworn in as Windsor Fair Police. All but three members of the temporary force do full-time police work for other agencies -- the three remaining officers are involved in law enforcement.

"This is what we really do all the time," Mason said. "There's hundreds of years of experience here."

That experience is vital to organizing and carrying out practices for maintaining security, said David Byras, president of the Litchfield Fair. The fair now hires full-time police officers for its security partly in response to an incident more than 20 years ago when the fair employed a private security company.

"A motorcycle gang came in one Sunday night, and when the trouble started (the security) took off and left the situation to us," Byras recalled.

Fair volunteers and carnival workers, many armed with steel stake pins, outnumbered the motorcycle gang.

"They decided for their own benefit they better leave the grounds, and they did.

"Since we've had the professionals, we've had no problems."

But that type of security does not come cheap.

At the Fryeburg Fair, for example, the annual tab for security runs about $300,000, said Richard Andrews, head of public safety at the fair for 45 years.

Security also includes a cadre of professional police officers as well as firefighters and emergency medical technicians.

That fair, the largest in the state, has about 400,000 visitors each year and about 8,000 staying in the campground.

That's on top of about 600 fair employees and hundreds of exhibitors and concessionaires.

Windsor's fair will see about 120,000 visitors this year and will have hundreds of campers.

"We have a city within the fairgrounds," Andrews said. "We have the same things on the fairground you would have in a city."

But even smaller fairs, such LItchfield, which has about 15,000 visitors each year, and the Clinton Lions Fair, which has about 16,000 each year, have seen the benefits of hiring full-time police officers for security.

"We don't have a lot of police but we try to have enough so that in the evening they are in several different areas," said Fair Chairman Jon Whitten Sr. "We've been quite fortunate. They've been able to keep it down to a very dull roar."

Most of the problems encountered by security revolve around the use of drugs and alcohol, said Whitten, who served as president of the Maine Fair Association for the past two years.

"We'd like to say we don't want any on the fairgrounds, but that's just not realistic," Whitten said.

Fair administrators from around the state gather regularly for meetings of the Maine Association of Agricultural Fairs and fair security is a frequent topic of conversation, said association President Francis Small. Most fairs have implemented safety practices, such as regularly collecting gate receipts, to remove temptation from would-be robbers.

At Windsor there is an armed police officer at every gate from opening to close.

"I'm not saying all fairs are that way, but most of them are," Small said. "We realize we could get hit and we take all the precautions we can."

Byras used to take the night deposit to the bank alone until about 10 years ago when a man in Massachusetts making a night deposit for the Topsfield Fair was gunned down.

"I don't do that anymore," Byras said. "I have one of the officers drive me to the bank."

Despite the efforts to maintain security, the truth is that the vast majority of fairgoers are interested in enjoying the family atmosphere rather than destroying it, Byras said.

But because of the small fraction of people who use the fairgrounds as a venue to get out of line, security will always be a top priority.

"We would like to think we wouldn't need any security, that people would come to the fair to have a good time and not cause any problems," Byras said. "But it's part of the whole picture."

Craig Crosby--623-3811 Ext. 433

ccrosby@centralmaine.com

Bookmark and share this story: digg del.icio.us Reddit

Reader comments

Click here to view or add reader comments