Ohio Fairs Are Very Well Governed

The state of Ohio has an excellent vending opportunity for anyone directly involved in the amusement industry. Their government handles a whole bunch in that state. If a person where to go to the Ohio Department of Agriculture they would find every county fair in Ohio listed in that web site.
In that listing you will find the web site and address and correct contact information for every county fair in Ohio. They have all the state sanctioned fairs as well as all the independent fairs listed either alphabetically or chronologically, you can choose which way you want them displayed. They also have the most known festivals in the state listed with their contact information as well. It is truly an awesome resource for any vendor. One of the very best in the nation.
You can search the site a little further and you will find their laws on carnival rides, food concessions, games, and most other types of products that you may want to book at any of their states fairs and festivals. For the most part these laws only specifically apply for the state sanctioned county fairs.
All the state sanctioned county fairs will have official Ohio Department of Agriculture Inspectors at each of them. They are always there the day before opening and the day of opening. Some of these fairs the inspectors are their every single day. They are there to inspect your concession and give you proper licensing. These licenses cost money, but too much. For games it is around $75 a game and the license is good all year.
The ones where an inspector is their every day are the better fairs and Ohio wants to keep them that way. These inspectors will be walking around every day trying to catch people doing less than desired practices. They will fine your company for any wrong doing. These fines are not cheap either, so don't get one.
I work in the games and have booked concessions with Ohio fairs before. One year I booked 7 different county fairs in Ohio. Each of them was with the state sanctioned type fairs. I bought the license for $65 that year which was 2006. Because it was my first year booking in Ohio and I wasn't able to get into the better fairs. Had I stayed booking the state I would have been able to get in the very best events eventually.
I noticed that the state was putting several rules changes over the most recent years that greatly affect how I operate my game. The state was taking steps away in prize progression. No longer were you able to trade multiple times before giving out the biggest prize. I work build up style games all year and a good build up will have at least a dozen wins needed to get the biggest prize.
The inspectors told me that year that they were going to go down from four that year to three the next. I asked why and was told that it was because the people working build ups in the state were getting complaints and tricking people too much. I have worked beside these types on many occasions and realize that some people just get more complaints than others. One of the reasons I go to Ohio and states that have strict guidelines is so that I don't have as much competition. The rules scare people off, especially when they know that they are more prone to having problems with the customers.
I do have a idea for the state of Ohio on how to properly license the fair games concessions. It would allow them to bring back the build ups with multiple steps. What they do is license each game individually by having the owner sign for the license. The owner of the concession is now legally responsible for what goes on inside the game. The owner is the one who has to pay the fines and could actually get charged with breaking a law.
Why should that be? In every regular job in society the employee is held responsible for more of the illegal transactions. Why not have the agents working the games bare some of these ramifications seeing as how they are the ones taking in the money physically from the players. They are the ones committing theft by deception. They are the ones who break the laws. I should be saying we, but am not, because I am pleading the 5th.
What the state of Ohio should do is inspect the agent working the game. Make them buy their own yearly license to work a game for a set fee. Make them buy a license for every type of game they want to work. Make them present proper identification to purchase the license while under the condition that the state checks all participants through the State of Ohio for any wants and warrants. Now make them solely responsible for any wrong doing in the game.
This would immediately eliminate the carnival workers that are running from the law for any reason. This would make the agents in the state a way more responsible lot. Not to mention that the inspectors are already on hand and monitoring the fairs anyway. And most of all, the Sate of Ohio Department of Agriculture would make a ton of extra cash. They would have to hire a security company to escort their inspectors from the lot with all that extra loot.
Now they could actually cancel out quite a few rules that are being implemented. These regulations that are actually driving good carnival people away simply because it isn't financially to their best interest. They are not coming to Ohio because the basket has to be a certain angle, they only allow 3 or 4 step build ups, the rim has to be so big, the duck pond has to have a mirror on the bottom, and the many others that simply aren't productive financially for the vendors at hand.
Despite all these regulations it is still a good state to do business in and mainly because of the involvement of the State of Ohio. The State of Ohio may have never had this philosophy or theory thrown at them. All I know is I would do a few more fairs there if it weren't for the rules that were put into effect. I still venture there for fairs that I know are productive financially like The Ohio State Fair, The IX Center, Canfeild, and some more.
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