Fair trouble spilled into parking lots, onto highways

PALMER -- Fair-goers enjoyed relative peace and order inside the Alaska State Fair grounds this year, but law enforcement had its hands full in parking lots and surrounding areas with drunken drivers, vandals, minors consuming alcohol and ditch-jumping motorists trying to get free parking.

According to Randy Scott, head of fair security, once inside the gates criminal activity died down. He said the fair was somewhat boring for him and his staff this year, and it was the quietest fair season he had seen in four years, with no major incidents or thefts and only a few fights. Scott is the eastern regional manager for Crowd Management Services, a company that has been contracted to do security for the fair the last four years.

Palmer Police Chief Russ Boatright, however, said his officers had their hands full during the fair, with everything from loose dogs running amok to a woman dying in a parking lot from a pulmonary aneurysm.

"My guys have been busier than hell this year," Boatright said. "It's going to take them two or three weeks just to catch up on the paperwork."

Boatright said his men are exhausted after working 10-hour shifts, seven days a week, during the fair. He had 10 officers working the fair every day, and every one of them was busy.

"There were no quiet nights, that's for sure," Boatright said. "But I kind of expected it to be active. The nice weather brought more people out, and the more people are out there, the more incidents there will be."

Boatright also said he understands that fair security does not see what goes on in the parking lots and what spills out into the community.

"Fair security did a good job out there this year," Boatright said. "They kept things under control inside the grounds."

The number of DUIs issued, however, was up this year from last, as were incidents of assault, theft and vandalism, Boatright said.

"I've just got a ton of incident reports to go through," Boatright said. "We had a knifing where the guy had to be transported to the hospital, several assaults at the Smashmouth concert, and a lot of drug and alcohol incidents. It was definitely busier than last year."

Although Scott said the fair was relatively quiet, fair security had a few tangles as well. On Aug. 31, Scott and another security guard, Sheri Marsh, had a more exciting afternoon at the fair when two allegedly intoxicated men stole some blankets from a booth and refused to return them to the vendor. Tanner Stoll, 22, and Joshua Firth, 23, were allegedly struggling with the vendor over the blankets when Scott and Marsh arrived.

According to an affidavit filed by Palmer police, the men began to struggle with security. Scott got one of the men in a hold and thought they were going to go to blows when one of their friends standing nearby, Andy Allen, 20, also reportedly intoxicated, jumped on the back of Marsh, causing them all to fall as a group into the Big Dipper ice cream booth. The booth's counter gave way and one of the ice cream carts fell over onto a female employee, pinning her between the booth and a metal set of shelves, according the affidavit.

Stoll was charged with third-degree theft, Firth was charged with fourth-degree assault and disorderly conduct, and Allen was charged with two counts of disorderly conduct and minor consuming alcohol. All three men were arrested and are being held at Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility.

Between these kinds of incidents and DUIs, Mat-Su Pre-Trial was filled to capacity during the fair, Boatright said. He estimated there were more than 200 remands at MSPTF in 11 fair days; in one night alone there were 22 bookings for DUI and misdemeanor offenses.

"I had officers who had to wait a half hour or an hour just to book people into Mat-Su Pre-Trial," Boatright said. "Sometimes we had three or four people in the booking cage, sleeping it off."

Contact John Davidson at john.davidson@frontiersman.com.