Festival, fire truck spurring Society Hill to regulate public events
By Bobby Bryant, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
Over the Memorial Day weekend, a community group held a small festival in the parking lot outside Society Hill’s Town Hall building.
The event featured food and games for the kids and the county fire department sent over a fire truck for extra entertainment. Firefighters helped children shoot jets of water into the air, and kids played in the “rain” created by fire hoses. Based on photos on the community group’s Facebook page, everyone had fun.
There were only two problems: The town’s government didn’t know about this event on town property, and the festival’s organizers didn’t have insurance in case anyone accidentally got hurt.
Now, Mayor Tommy Bradshaw plans to have the town of 560 people start regulating public events on town property to protect Society Hill’s government from potentially disastrous legal liability.
At the Town Council’s June 11 meeting, Bradshaw announced that the town would develop an application process for any group seeking to hold a public event on town property.
A form would be filled out and the town would issue a permit if no problems are found. Any group wanting to have a public event on town-owned property would be required to arrange $1 million worth of liability insurance.
This would pose few problems for the town’s big annual festivals, A Taste of Society Hill and the Catfish Festival. Organizers of those events always arrange insurance in advance, Bradshaw said.
But for those planning smaller events – such as For the Community, By the Community, the local nonprofit group that held the Memorial Day weekend event – the insurance requirement could be an impossible hurdle.
(The rule won’t apply to families having, say, a birthday party at the town-owned picnic tables next to Town Hall – only to events that invite the general public.)
Bradshaw said he doesn’t want to discourage For the Community, By the Community or any group from holding events that residents can enjoy.
But he said the town needs to know about the events in advance to avoid any liability issues. “We just failed to get our hands around this,” Bradshaw said.
When he learned about the Memorial Day weekend event with the fire truck, Bradshaw said, “That fire truck scared me. … If a kid had slipped (in the water from fire hoses), it could have been catastrophic. … We’re going to have rules and regulations or we’re going to have chaos. So we’ve got to come up with the regulations.”
The mayor said he contacted the county fire department to ask about the fire truck’s presence at the Memorial Day weekend event. He said a fire official told him that, since the event was happening outside the Town Hall building, on town property, everyone assumed the town must have known about it.
The group sponsoring the event, For the Community, By the Community, apparently asked for the fire truck.
The group’s Facebook page says: “We love Society Hill. … With the help of local partners and volunteers, we work together to bring fun and wholesome activities to everyone in our community. We exist to enrich the quality of life in our community by inspiring others to give, serve and grow.”
The group posted on its Facebook page a copy of a letter sent by town officials June 4 advising that any organization planning to hold a public event on town property must have proof of $1 million in liability insurance. That letter apparently spurred the group to cancel another event, an “open-mic night.”
“We have … encountered issues that we have to work around,” the group posted.
The organization said it was trying to find ways to pay for insurance for events, but indicated that would be tough since their events are free. The group is also seeking privately-owned spots to hold events.
“Until we find some common ground with the town, we’ll continue to bring the community together in other ways,” the group posted. “We will not allow this setback to stop us.”
In an e-mail to the News & Press, group member Scott Dixon said he and resident Debbie Allen “have worked really hard with the community over the past year” to establish the organization. The group, he said, “will continue to bring even more friendly, fun and diverse opportunities to our quaint little village.
Society Hill is truly a wonderful little town and we intend on keeping it a place that people love to call home.”
In other business at Town Council’s June 11 session, council members quickly and unanimously approved the town’s budget for the next fiscal year. The $247,000 plan is about $10,000 more than Society Hill had to work with during the current fiscal year.