by Mickey Smith

Lamoille County Sheriff Roger Marcoux Jr. said his department has been notified the Vermont Reggae Festival organizers are not planning to pursue a public assembly permit for the festival which is planned to be held at the Lamoille County Field Days site in Johnson, on August 13, 14 and 15.

“This opened the door for them to not work with us,” said Sheriff Marcoux.

He said it puts emergency services, including the Lamoille County Sheriff's Department, Newport Ambulance Service and Johnson Fire Department, in a difficult situation.

A public assembly permit is required for gatherings of over 2,000 people. As part of the permit process, the organizers were being required to work out strategies with those departments, which could include contracting for additional services.

Mike Paradee, executive director of Newport Ambulance Service, said his department has an obligation to the towns with which they contract, including Johnson. Their Johnson station is located across the road from the Field Days site.

“Unless we see more, we'll sit at our station and listen to the music,” said Paradis.

Paradis said they had planned to set up an aid station for the event, similar to what they do at Field Days, but without a contract they will only be going to the scene for 911 emergencies.

An informational meeting was held regarding the event on June 29, and the festival organizers presented a plan then that included hiring security and other emergency services.

“It seemed like it was going to be a good thing then, but since then it's fallen apart,” said Paradis.
LCSD Chief Deputy Eben Merrill said they have not heard directly from the festival organizers in a couple weeks, but at last count only 36 tickets had been sold.

A meeting has been scheduled for August 2 at the Johnson Municipal building to discuss the festival.  Sheriff Marcoux said his department would outline their plans to patrol the neighborhoods over the festival weekend.  Marcoux said he will have some additional officers on duty that weekend, but without a contract with the festival any additional duty officers will have to come out of his patrol budget.  He said if there was an emergency situation he could bring in the Vermont State Police, as well as the county's mutual aid system.

“We're going to provide the services we said we would,” said Sheriff Marcoux.
Private vendors, such as Ethan and Donna Hill's Hillside Trash Service, will be working directly with the reggae festival.  The Hills said they have a contract for the event, but have not recently been in contact with the organizers to know what size of an event for which they should plan.

Sheriff Marcoux said there were also Act 250 concerns about the event, but no information was available about those concerns at press time. Attempts to reach Jose Hammond, a coordinator of the event, were also unsuccessful at press time.

Concerns with crowd size have been an issue since the event was announced earlier this year. A similar, but free, concert, which was held off the Hogback Road in Johnson during the 1990s, drew crowds of 15,000 to 25,000 people.  In recent years, paid reggae festivals have drawn drastically smaller numbers. One held in Newport last year drew less than 500 people. Organizers of the Field Days event have publicly stated they expect a crowd of less than 3,000 people. Field Days organizers say the site could adequately hold 5,000 to 6,000 people.