The California Mid-State Fair is heading into its first weekend and with Cardi B and Blake Shelton coming to town, big crowds are expected. That means plenty of drinks will be sold.
At concerts in the past, vendors have sold up to 207 kegs of beer in one night. With two sold-out shows this weekend, the fair says they’re trained and ready with ride service options and security to make sure everyone drinks responsibly.
“We really have very few incidents and that’s probably due to the amount of uniformed officers that we have. At nighttime, you can’t hardly look 30 yards any direction without seeing someone in uniform,” said Tom Keffury, California Mid-State Fair representative.
Vendors and employees must go through certifications and training to even sell alcohol at the fair, and vendors say they do their best to look out for fake IDs and anyone who has had too much to drink.
“If it looks like they’ve had too much to drink, we usually get involved also and offer them a free water, ask them to come back and we’ll see if we would sell them a drink then but typically we don’t want to over-serve anybody and we certainly don’t want to serve a minor,” said vendor J.G. King.
If a vendor were to sell alcohol to anyone underage, the person selling and the owners of the liquor license could be fined, but King says his staff is prepared for those situations.
Keffury says the fair is looking forward to a big weekend and says they run a tight ship to make sure everybody has fun but no one gets out of control.
The fair says there are also underage decoys who try and buy drinks from vendors to make sure everyone is staying up to code.
