Would Make Midway for
Fair Impossibility. . . Pasquotank County Commissioners Order Sheriff to Refuse
License to Carnival or Amusement Companies Anywhere in the County
There will be no side shows, museums, menageries,
merry-go-rounds, ferris wheels and like amusement enterprises in connection
with the Albemarle District Fair to be held at Elizabeth City November 11, 12,
13, 14 and 15, if the County Commissioners can prevent it.
The Commissioners of Pasquotank invoked Chapter 164 of the
Public Laws of North Carolina of 1919, which authorizes County Commissioners to
refuse permission to carnivals and other shows to exhibit in such counties. The
Commissioners had gotten wind of the coming of the Krause Shows, which expected
to show here under the auspices of the Loyal Order of Moose. Before Krause’s
advance agent could get to the sheriff’s office for a license the commissioners
blocked the show by ordering the sheriff not to grant license to any carnival
company to show anywhere in the county.
The resolution was promptly adopted and then some one
thought of the fair. The Commissioners admitted that they hadn’t thought about the
fair, but they were of the opinion that the fair should not receive any special
favors. One commissioner said: “If they can’t get up a fair without such
things, then we had better not have a fair.” To this remark others nodded
approval.
Now a fair without a midway is like a clock without works, like
bread without butter, or like a bride-groom without a bride. The crowds that
come to a fair come to be amused. They want plenty of life, motion, music,
noise, bustle and excitement. They want something to do every minute. The
midway attractions for a fair can be secured in only one way, and that is by
contract with some amusement organization. No fair association could attempt to
set up a midway by contracting with every show required. The carnival company
comes in and puts up all the shows, paying the fair association a stipulated
sum or percentage for privileges.
And so, if the County Commissioners have their way, the
Albemarle District Fair may be as flat as an unleavened pancake.
The Fair Association may find a way out. The Revenue act
which prescribes the taxes to be imposed upon carnival companies expressly
states that the act does not apply to amusement parks otherwise taxed. The Fair
Association may find a way out, in spite of the commissioners. But in the
meantime, the action of the commissioners is giving everybody something to talk
about.
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