Modify hours, boost security at Village Fair
Communities across the metro area are being faced with decisions they never expected to have to make – closing long-established events due to lawless and reckless behavior by increasingly rebellious groups of teenagers who appear to disregard the norms of society, including law enforcement, or curtailing the events to daylight hours, making them less cost viable. It's like “West Side Story” on steroids.
The ultimate dilemma that these thoughtless thugs have created is that they have endangered Birmingham's Village Fair, a local institution each summer the weekend following Memorial Day in late May/early June since 1965.
The Village Fair is sponsored and run by the Birmingham Bloomfield Chamber of Commerce, and is its largest fundraiser each year. It also helps many local organizations; last year, nonprofit community groups, including school groups, received $20,000 in exchange for helping out at the fair. The chamber of commerce pays a fee to the city for police and fire department support for the event.
Many of us have fond memories of the Tilt-o-Wheel, Ferris Wheel, merry-go-round, and loads of other rides from when we were kids and then parents of our own children, attending the fair in Shain Park. But last year, pleasant memories were overturned when significant incidents involving teens fighting, including a major fight at Henrietta and W. Maple involving teens from Brother Rice and Seaholm high schools, and four teens were formally charged with aggravated assault. The brawls followed disturbances in other communities that lead officials to close down equally cherished events. Last year, Berkley Days cut short its Saturday night carnival hours for the second year in a row due to unruly behavior. Their compromise in 2024, its 98h year, was to close at 7 p.m. And Orchard Lake St. Mary's Polish Country Fair, which initially closed for the pandemic, has stayed closed due to school violence and threats made on social media.
At a recent city commission meeting, Birmingham Police Chief Scott Grewe recommended closing this year's fair, it's 60th, at 8 p.m. rather than 11 p.m. Commissioners, business owners, who benefit from the increase in visitors to the city, and Joe Bauman, the chamber's president, said they would prefer a later closing. A compromise – along with more security – would benefit fairgoers, retailers, restaurants, the chamber, and the fair operator, North American Midway Entertainment, which estimated that closing three hours early could cost them up to 25 percent of their revenue and that of the chamber of commerce.
The Village Fair is part of the DNA of Birmingham. It's a fun and joyful happening that symbolizes the start of our summer. It is fully unacceptable that some teenage punks deprive everyone else of this joyous and lucrative activity. Let's stop them rather than be held hostage by a group of kids.
We urge the city, chamber and police department to jointly compromise on a solution. Perhaps close the fair at 10 p.m., just as dusk turns to dark in the summer. The fair is an attractive evening event for teens in downtown – if it closes too early, where will they go, and what will they do? City leaders need to provide opportunities for them to meet and socialize in healthy ways, and to work with law enforcement to get more boots on the ground and through the cameras all over town to thwart bad actors before they can ruin the fun for everyone else.
We all need to look forward to the fun of a fair, and one that operates well beyond what has initially been proposed.
