With the Great New York State Fair just days away, vendors are preparing for a major change that fair officials say is aimed at improving safety but will also reshape how businesses operate during the 13-day event.<\/p>\n
New traffic restrictions will keep all vendor vehicles off the fairgrounds during fair hours. The policy bans vehicle traffic inside the fairgrounds\u2019 perimeter from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., a move designed to keep vehicles and fairgoers separated. For vendors, it means changing how supplies are brought in and out.<\/p>\n
Twin Trees, which has been part of the state fair since 1971, is among the vendors adjusting its operations. Owner Dan Ross said the new rules mean planning ahead and building in extra capacity.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just kind of got to roll with the punches. There’s been a lot of changes here at the fair in the past 10 years, and this is just another one,\u201d Ross said.<\/p>\n
Ross said he has brought in additional equipment and plans to stock up early. \u201cI brought in some extra, you know, freezers and stuff to try to keep my stock up just in case some problems do arise. I’m probably going to keep a lot of extra stuff on stock right at the beginning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Fair Director Julie LaFave said officials decided on the change after seeing issues last year that raised concerns about safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don’t want to get to the point where we see something happen, but we saw things last year that were a lot of vulnerabilities, a lot of things that could have gone wrong very quickly,\u201d LaFave said.<\/p>\n
LaFave acknowledged the shift could have ripple effects. \u201cAnytime you make a change, there’s always going to be consequences. They could be good consequences, bad consequences, or unintended consequences,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Organizers said they consulted with vendors, event industry partners and others before implementing the new restrictions, and said those conversations will continue during and after the fair.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not the type of organization that we make a decision and that is that. We want to hear from our partners and we take all feedback seriously,\u201d LaFave said.<\/p>\n
Ross said vendors are doing what they can to be ready if problems arise under the new system. \u201cThe fair, obviously, they’re a boss. We’re just the tenants,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He also described the change as part of a broader pattern of challenges for the food business in recent years. \u201cIt’s the nature of the business. It’s the restaurant business. It’s not a lot of fun. It’s a lot of hard work, especially over the past five to 10 years. Since COVID and stuff, it’s even more of a challenge. And I look forward to challenges,\u201d Ross said.<\/p>\n
The new policy has already led to two organizations pulling out of this year\u2019s fair: the New York State Barrel Horse Association and the New York State Horse Pullers Association.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the Great New York State Fair just days away, vendors are preparing for a major change that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-318344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}