City Council takes action to ban carnivals after issues at Berkley Days

BERKLEY — After two consecutive years of issues pertaining to safety at Berkley Days, the City Council last week passed a resolution directing city staff to prepare an ordinance to ban carnivals.

At its Sept. 16 meeting, the City Council received an “After Action Report” from the Berkley Public Safety Department that detailed the events of the 2024 edition of Berkley Days May 9-12, as well as the changes that had been made after incidents that occurred in 2023.

Detective Lt. Andrew Hadfield reviewed the report for the council. As a longtime resident, he doesn’t believe he’s missed an annual edition of Berkley Days, and during that time, the festival was mainly watched over by two to three officers and problems were minimal. The biggest issues, he said, were parking related.

In 2023, it was around 5 p.m. May 13 when a number of juveniles showed up and wore masks, carried duffel bags and some had BB guns. Eventually, a couple of fights broke out at the carnival.

“Not that you’re not prepared for it, but you’re like, ‘This is different,’” Hadfield said. “This feels different. This hasn’t happened before, and after a couple of the fights, it was, ‘We need to get this under control before it gets dark, before we have bigger issues,’ and so that event was shut down.”

Hadfield said there were issues with traffic as well and trying to get police cars in and out, and a couple of more fights that broke out. There also were people who committed retail fraud in downtown stores as people left the fair, Hadfield said.

For 2024, police wanted to improve upon the safety plan with more security and restrictions on what could be brought into the event. Initially, there were 12 officers ready to serve at the event.

The first two days of Berkley Days went by with minimal issues. On May 11, the crowd started to increase at 6 p.m. and the hired security company notified police that kids were trying to sneak in with masks.

“As much as it kept working with what was going on, we started getting the feeling that we had had in 2023,” Hadfield said. “The groups were congregating, they were not riding rides, they were not getting wristbands.”

After two fights had broken out, the decision was made to shut down the carnival for that day. Hadfield stated that evacuating the fair went better than the previous year, though there were some fights that occurred.

The biggest thing that happened was a gathering of 50 or so juveniles who had masks on at 11 Mile Road and Coolidge Highway.

“There were lots of them that had brought that with intent,” Hadfield said. “They knew they couldn’t get in the carnival with it. They kept them in their pockets. So now we had a big issue with kids running across 11 and Coolidge going into Oak Park, coming back over, you’d see a skirmish behind an alley and officers trying to get that under control, and most of the kids had no way home. And that was probably one of the biggest problems, was the unsupervised children that were there who had been dropped off by parents or friends and had no way. We had a 10-year-old that sat for almost two hours waiting for a parent from Sterling Heights to come get them.”

A total of 41 officers, including those who came from out of town, responded to close down the carnival. The cost for the public safety response was $13,276.88

In comparing the two years, Hadfield said 2024 was better, but the concern will always be for the next year.

Based on the judgment of the Public Safety Department, the Berkley Days Committee and other staff, interim City Manager Nate Geinzer recommended not holding carnivals in Berkley.

“This is not a dollars and cents thing, this is not an ‘end Berkley Days’ thing,” he said. “This is an event that has outgrown our community from our standpoint. It’s outgrown our public safety resources. It’s outgrown probably the location of this. I’m not sure we have spaces here that are really designed to support a carnival, and that’s what this is about.”

What stood out to Geinzer was that 41 public safety officials responded on May 11. He said such a response causes a lot of stress on the community and its mutual aid partners. He also was concerned that an incident could break out at the fair and, at the same time, another incident could occur, such as a structure fire, that needed public safety attention too.

“These are the types of things that are going through my mind and our staff’s mind as we’re bringing forth a recommendation of this level,” he said.

The council voted 5-1 to approve the ban on carnivals. The council member to vote no, Clarence Black, said during the meeting that this recommendation was tough for him because the “war fighter” in him felt this was akin to “terrorism.” Black has more than a decade of service in the Army Reserve.

“This is just people changing our way of life,” he said, adding that it’s not the city, it’s an “everywhere” issue and that “we need to figure out what’s going on with our kids.”

“My instincts are to just say, ‘Let’s fight and not let them change our way of life.’ I think it’s something that we have to do,” he said.

Mayor Bridget Dean told the Woodward Talk that she felt it was in the city’s best interest to do away with carnivals. She said Berkley Days began more than 100 years ago as a parade and has changed over time.

“It has evolved and changed as time went on, and this is just a continuation of that evolution and change,” she said. “Nothing stays the same, and I will defer also to public safety. They supported this resolution as well, and given all the information that was taken into account — all of it — I believe that it’s the right way to move forward at this time.”

As the council now has passed the resolution, it has directed the city staff to draft an ordinance that will ban carnivals, which will come back to council for approval at a later date.

Berkley Days Committee Chair Denise Downen said in a prepared statement that the Berkley Days Association fully supported the resolution passed by the City Council.

“Given the events of the past two years, we believe that proceeding with a midway at this time would pose safety risks and be an irresponsible decision, considering the large crowds it typically draws,” she stated. “This decision was not made lightly, but after careful consideration, we believe it is in the best interest of our community — including its residents, business owners, and public safety personnel.”

Downen also shared the same sentiment as Dean that the city is not abandoning the vision of celebrating Berkley Days in some form.

“We are actively exploring new ideas and opportunities to reimagine the event for the future,” she said. “Our goal is to create a safe, enjoyable experience that reflects the spirit of our community, and we look forward to sharing more details as discussions progress.”

Dean stated that the Berkley Days Committee will work on how the event will proceed moving forward and present an idea to City Council at a later date.

“People aren’t aware of the time it takes to plan an event this large, and so the fact that they’re contemplating and that the city is giving direction now, I think, is a good thing, because this is an event that they probably use most of the year to plan for the next one,” she said. “This, at least, will give them direction on how we’re going to proceed. … It’s with a heavy heart. This was a time-honored tradition in Berkley.”