County Commissioner Lenny Eliason said he wants to lobby the state legislature to require 13Fest organizers to acquire a permit from the County sheriff.
Number Fest organizers might have to obtain a permit from the county sheriff next year — that is, if County Commissioner Lenny Eliason succeeds in changing Ohio Revised Code.
Eliason said he wants to lobby state representatives for a change in a section of code that exempts Prime Social Group, the organization that hosts the event, from obtaining a permit from Athens County Sheriff Rodney Smith.
Eliason said the fest currently does not require a permit from the sheriff because the venue has less than eight entrances or turnstiles and does not fall under the same category as other outdoor concerts.
“The sheriff is charged with keeping the peace,” Eliason said. “So the law has exceptions from getting a permit to the sheriff built in the code. (We want to revise code) so that events like Number Fest would have to get a permit from the sheriff first.”
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The permit would require fest organizers to comply with the sheriff’s terms in order to make the event safe.
Eliason said he hopes the permit would help to curb some of the traffic and transportation issues that occurred at 13Fest.
“You have to address the capacity (of the audience, and) the ability for the area, as far as transportation,” he said. “You have noise issues; you have sanitation issues. Obviously you have movement of people back and forth.”
This year, after the buses that were meant to transport attendees malfunctioned, sheriff's deputies had to shut down part of Ohio State Route 56 in order to accommodate pedestrians walking back from the event, according to a previous Post article.
“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),” Smith said in a previous Post article.
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County Commissioner Chris Chmiel said he was willing to work with Eliason on looking at how to change the law, although he would leave most of the lobbying to Eliason.
“We’ve received lots of calls and emails from concerned citizens, and commissioners don’t really make laws and there’s limited tools in our toolbox to do this,” he said.
Chmiel said the current law regulating concerts in the state was enacted after a 1979 concert in Cincinnati by rock band The Who. That concert lead to the deaths of 11 concert goers.
He said Eliason is trying to extend the reach of that law to apply to events like Number Fest.
“People are trying to do the right thing and avoid a catastrophe like that where people die,” Chmiel said. “This law is one way to do it…. I think Dominic (Petrozzi, the organizer of the event) is trying to do the right thing but I also think that everything that he’s tried hasn’t really been adequate.”
Petrozzi was not available for comment as of press time.
Eliason said he would be reaching out to local representatives first, then reaching out to members of the majority party to see if this is a problem that other college towns face.
“Until we talk to them we don’t know,” he said. “It’s a matter of how many towns have the issue.”
Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn said he was working with his office to look into ways to revise the code to make the Fest safer as well.
“We need to do everything we can to protect the health and safety of those who in our county,” he said. “This seems like one of the main options to protect citizens.”
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