Law enforcement officers report an increase in crowds and arrests at this year’s 13Fest
After “unruly behavior” and “belligerency” caused shuttles to stop transporting patrons back to uptown Athens from Saturday’s 13Fest, event organizer and founder Dominic Petrozzi said changes might be coming to next year’s fest.
“We’re in the music festival business,” he said. “We’re not in the drunken debauchery business.”
Among the changes at next year’s fest will be removing the event’s “BYOB” element — which was implemented this year and required patrons to pay $10 to bring their own alcohol into the event — and an end to the shuttle system.
The shuttle system was a free service promised to attendees, according to a previous Post report.
Though many festers took advantage of the free shuttle service, some arrived back to Athens in a police vehicle.
“I had never seen more people passing out at the Number Fest due to intoxication than I did this year,” said Cody Smith, an Ohio University senior studying sociology and criminology, in an email.
The Ohio Investigative Unit arrested 117 individuals at Saturday’s fest on 159 charges, OIU agent in charge Sam Love said.
Athens County Emergency Medical Services saw 81 people at its first aid station at the venue’s entrance and transported 26 to nearby hospitals. One ambulance was dispatched to State Route 56, which was the main route for students traveling back to campus after the event.
“The numbers are way up, especially in terms of people transported,” Athens County EMS Chief Rick Callebs said.
Additionally, the Ohio State Highway Patrol arrested 15 impaired drivers, doled out 153 traffic citations and 139 warnings on Friday and Saturday. Those arrests and citations occurred on U.S. Route 33, U.S. Route 50, State Route 682, State Route 56 west of the venue and Radford Road, said Lt. George Harlow, of Athens’ Highway Patrol Post.
Harlow added that the agency administered four misdemeanor drug arrests and three felony drug arrests.
Those numbers are up after last year's 12Fest, when law enforcement agencies made 85 arrests on 124 charges, according to a previous Post report.
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Most of the charges at this year's Number Fest were either alcohol- or drug-related, including underage drinking, drug abuse, marijuana abuse and disorderly conduct by intoxication, Love said.
He added other charges included failure to disclose personal information, possession of a fake I.D., obstructing official business and resisting arrest.
Love said three individuals were removed from the premises; one was transported to the Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail, and two were sent to the Athens County Sheriff's Office's holding cells.
Athens County Sheriff Rodney Smith said he thought there were generally more people at this year’s Number Fest.
His department made one arrest at the venue, he said.
Smith said the buses transporting people to and from the event resulted in most of the night’s complications.
“As people started going home, some got stuck, some broke down,” he said. “Once that happened, they just started walking.”
He said State Route 56 essentially had to be shut off on the lane headed toward Athens as students made their way back from the fest, and that his department had deputies lining the road.
Ohio University’s campus is almost 3 miles from the field where Number Fest takes place.
Once the crowd began to thin out slightly — mostly between 10:30 and 11 p.m. — deputies offered police escorts to vehicles trying to make their way along the route.
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“I really believe it’s unsafe to have so many people in that venue and to try to transport them all,” he said. “I think a crowd of 10,000 or less, we’d probably be OK, but not (as many as were at 13Fest).”
Petrozzi said he takes full responsibility for the fact that Route 56 had to close down, a result of fest-goers rushing the buses and breaking in the windows.
“From my perspective, I’m just disappointed but its also part of the culture that we helped create, and now it’s up to us to fix it,” he said.
But Cody Smith said he didn’t think making the fest-goers walk was the proper response.
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“I think the bottom line is that the Number Fest organizers need to stop making promises they can't keep,” he said. “I wouldn't have been so upset if I weren't promised a shuttle ride even if I was the last person of (all the) attendees.”
Early Saturday afternoon, Ohio State Highway Patrol officers manned all of the highways in Athens County with 18 troopers.
Many drivers were intoxicated festers trying to head back home, Harlow added.
“(We were) inundated with OVI drivers and intoxicated passengers that we had to deal with,” Harlow said. “We could have easily arrested more drunk drivers, but we were already taking care of other drunk drivers.”
He added that none of those drivers caused collisions.
“We’re very thankful for that,” he said.
Petrozzi said the event itself ran smoothly, and 16,000 tickets were scanned at the event.
He said he owed a significant amount of thanks to law enforcement and emergency services.
“They all just did a fantastic job,” he said. “We feel very blessed to have that opportunity (to work with them).”
Cody Smith echoed Petrozzi’s sentiment.
“Honestly, this year was probably the most polite and pleasant experience I've ever had with the police in terms of their being friendly and treating us college students like actual people and not a bunch of idiots,” he said.
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