WEST POINT — A “Please Wear Face Masks” sign was displayed at the entrance to the lot where C&M Southern Midways Carnival had set up at the intersection where West Church Hill Road meets Highway 45 Alternate on Wednesday. Behind it, the cotton candy concession stand, bright yellow ticket booth and Ferris wheel were already in place, along with roughly a dozen other rides and concession stands, just as they had been every fall for more than a decade.
The plan was for the carnival to open today.
C&M owner Charles Haisch, who runs the carnival with his brother Mike Haisch, stood by the entrance with a handful of employees, waiting for word on whether West Point city officials would allow the carnival to open amid the COVID-19 pandemic this year.
“I was in here two weeks ago and talked to the city manager and staff, and they gave me the OK,” he said.
But the West Point board of selectmen had already voted Tuesday evening — less than 48 hours before the carnival was set to open — to rescind the permit the Haisches purchased on Monday due to concerns over the pandemic.
The Eastaboga, Alabama-based carnival is a small fair that has been coming to West Point, along with other cities in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia, for “15 or 20 years,” Charles Haisch said.
He said they’d had to postpone the carnival in a couple of cities last spring when the pandemic first began, but all had gone on as planned this fall. The carnival just came from Tupelo and had been in Meridian before that. Plus, Charles added, he knew another fair had recently been to Columbus.
“We’ve been working every week,” Charles said.
Ward 5 Selectman Jasper Pittman raised concern about the carnival at Tuesday evening’s board meeting, openly worried whether allowing it would cause a “super-spreader event” of COVID-19 in the city.
He waited until the board had completed its entire written agenda, then began questioning why the carnival was permitted to operate during a pandemic with what he believed to be fewer restrictions than local businesses are expected to shoulder.
Specifically, Pittman zeroed in on whether the open-air carnival was permitted to have more than 50 in attendance at a time, a reference to the city’s restriction of no more than 50 for indoor gatherings. After Police Chief Avery Cook failed to guarantee, upon Pittman’s request, the carnival’s capacity would be limited to 50, the selectman moved to rescind the event’s permit and send it packing.
Pittman’s argument gained traction among a board that had opted, in that same meeting, to extend an eight-month closure of city parks facilities. Ultimately the board unanimously agreed to pull the carnival’s $250 traveling vendor permit and refund the cost.
“We are in the middle of a pandemic,” Ward 2 Selectman William Binder said as he joined Pittman’s argument. “… What we do have control over, we should control it.”
But Charles Haisch said carnival employees go out of their way to follow safety measures implemented to curb the spread of COVID-19 and that it’s as safe or safer to attend the fair as it is to eat at a restaurant.
“We put our signs up (reminding guests to wear masks),” he said. “We’ve got our fog machines to sanitize. … Before we even open, the rides are sanitized.
“We do everything we can,” he added.
Mayor Robbie Robinson, who supported the carnival despite being a strong advocate for COVID-19 mitigations measures — such as limits on indoor gatherings and the city’s mask-wearing mandate — offered no dissent at the board table. However, he expressed disagreement with the decision to The Dispatch on Wednesday morning.
“I argue against it, but I respect the board’s decision,” Robinson said. “I’ve seen where there have been carnivals recently in Columbus and Tupelo, so I didn’t see any problem with (one coming to West Point).”
The carnival comes each fall, both Robinson and Chief Administrative Officer Randy Jones told The Dispatch. As part of its contract, it gives the city 10 percent of gate receipts, which infuses between $3,000 and $4,000 into West Point’s parks department fund.
Jones, tasked with notifying the carnival owners Wednesday of the board’s decision, said that went about as well as could be expected.
“This is a good carnival that comes every year and gives thousands of dollars to the city,” Jones told The Dispatch. “… I’ve dealt with these guys for years. They certainly weren’t pleased, but there wasn’t any blowback.”
Charles Haisch said it costs the carnival about $5,000 to move from Eastaboga to another city and set up, several times more than what it will recuperate from the $250 permit refund.
“It ain’t cheap,” he said.
Robinson said he feels the carnival owners would have to file legal action to recoup expenses outside of what they directly paid the city. He hopes it doesn’t come to that, and he said he further hopes the carnival will return when the pandemic has passed.
“They will be welcome to come back next year,” he said.
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