The Carnival Patrol : For Police at the County Fair, There’s No Time for Fun and Games

For the most part, the Ventura County Fair is a carefree place. That’s partly because of a staff of trouble-shooters whose job is to keep it that way.

The temporary force takes stock of everything from gang control to monitoring livestock to keeping game booths legal during the fair’s 12-day run.

With a daily attendance averaging about 25,500 people, the fair boasts a population larger than some cities in the county.

“It’s basically a city within a city,” said Lt. Don Arth, who commands the 25 Ventura police officers who staff the fairgrounds. “This is basically our own separate police department.”

A 20-year veteran of the Ventura County Fair patrol, Arth has little chance to enjoy the rides and exhibits that draw the county’s largest crowd of the year. Officers spend up to 14 hours a day at the fair just patrolling the 62-acre grounds.

Fair officials will spend just over $200,000 in security to keep the fair problem-free with the help of police officers, sheriff’s deputies and internal security workers, assistant fair manager Art Amelio said.

“That’s an area where you have to spend what you have to spend,” Amelio said.

In addition to police, a six-officer mounted patrol from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department oversees the perimeter of the fairgrounds, Arth said.

A staff of 135 security workers hired by the fair association work as bouncers to break up fights, said Maggie Hayes, director of internal security.

The fairground’s “police station” is a small trailer that houses its own dispatch center and a tiny squad room. A jail, actually a red-and-white striped tent, was pitched near the main gates.

During the first five days of the fair, nine people were arrested on relatively minor charges, including disturbing the peace or carrying a concealed weapon, Arth said.

One hot spot for trouble is the carnival midway, where fights and shoplifting are most likely to occur, Arth said. It is also where plainclothes officers watch the crowds for gang members.

Arth said officers in past years prevented serious fights by noticing gang markings on clothing and gang signs flashed between rival gang members.

“If we feel they’re carrying weapons, we will pat them down,” Arth said.

Some of the crimes that happen at the fair are petty. A few days ago, “a man broke into a burrito booth and decided to fix himself an early morning snack,” Hayes said. “We did catch him.”

The county fair has a population of animals that also need to be protected, Hayes said. About 200 animals are housed in the livestock area, and between 500 and 800 smaller animals spread out in the fair’s various exhibits.

“We have had sheep turned loose in the middle of the night,” Hayes said. “My officers spent a good part of the night herding sheep.”

While Arth and Hayes are monitoring security at events, carnival liaison Dennis Stanfield serves as a kind of judge at any one of the 53 game booths than line the midway.

A hired contractor, Stanfield determines whether the booths where fair-goers toss, shoot and pitch for prizes are legal.

Stanfield said he spent 21 years working for the Garden Grove Police Department, many of those years investigating carnival fraud.

“Every game out here can be fixed,” Stanfield said as he checked darts, glass bottles and softballs to see if fair-goers are being cheated.

So far, Stanfield has failed to come up with anything more serious than damaged feathers on darts used in a dart board game and a few bottles that were difficult to toss rings around.

Several days ago, he was successful in getting a worker fired for refusing to give prizes to fair-goers who had won them fairly in a ring-toss game. But not all of the games can be judged fairly, he added.

“There’s a lot of times when I can’t tell. I can’t make a determination, and I just make them give their money back.”