District attorney will enforce festival ordinance

The days of ignoring Douglas County's festival permit are over, District Attorney Mark Jackson said Tuesday night, literally laying down the law.

Jackson said the county's festivals could either follow the letter of the current law, or follow a revised festival ordinance, but that he would not permit a return to the days when the ordinances requirements were winked at.

He told a group of about 30 people, representing a dozen groups who obtained festival permits, that it is his duty to enforce all of the ordinance's provisions, no matter how onerous.

Douglas County's festival ordinance was enacted in 1970 in response to the fear that large Woodstock style festivals would be held here.

In 1973, the Nevada Legislature codified Douglas' ordinance into state statute and mandated that all Nevada counties enact festival ordinances.

The only revision to the county's ordinance came in 1981, when commissioners decided they could waive the festival fees.

"This ordinance is about protecting the health, safety and welfare of the county," Jackson said.

However, he questioned the ability of many of the county's most popular events to function under the present ordinance.

"I don't know that we could have an event in Douglas County under the current ordinance," he said.

Among the requirements in the law now are that festival organizers provide one parking space for every two people. For an event like Candy Dance, which attracts 30,000 people over two days, that would mean a minimum of 7,500 parking spaces or 56 acres of nothing but parking. Organizers would have to come up with 15 gallons of water per person a day, or 1.4 acre feet for the weekend. An acre foot is the amount of water a family of four consumes over the course of a year.

A typical Candy Dance would also require 375 toilets and 600 garbage cans.

Under the new ordinance, Genoans would have to have 1,500 parking spaces and 200 toilets, 150 garbage cans and 60 drinking water stations capable of producing 4 gallons of water an hour.

"Unfortunately, the laws haven't been enforced," Jackson said. "But, they will be enforced now."

The new ordinance is on county commissioners' May 7 agenda for a first reading. If approved it could return for a second reading at the commissioner's May 14 meeting at Lake Tahoe.

The timing of the new ordinance's approval concerned representatives of the Stateline casinos, who have festivals planned for the end of June, sooner than the 60 days required in the ordinance.

However, county commissioner Greg Lynn proposed reducing the turnaround for those applicants who were caught off guard by the change.

Jackson agreed.

"There are going to be a lot of extenuating circumstances," he said.

Higher fees included in an earlier draft of the ordinance have been removed from the latest rewrite.

"I don't think government should be in the business of making money," Jackson said.

Now the ordinance includes a $100 non-refundable filing fee. However, that doesn't mean that the sheriff or fire services won't charge for their services.

A representative of the Carson Valley Active 20-30 Club, which organizes Carson Valley Days, said he thinks the new ordinance will be better.

"There's a lot more ability for the county commissioners to waive rules then there is now," Jeremy Davidson said. "We're pretty satisfied."

Minden farmers market and winter festival organizers Howard and Kregg Herz said Jackson's presentation cleared up some of the questions they had.

"It's hard to write an ordinance like this because you have to make it work everywhere in the county," Howard Herz said.

Under the new ordinance events like the Minden Farmers Market might not even require a permit. Jackson said events expecting 500 or fewer people would not need to get a permit.

A loophole Genoa Town Board members briefly toyed with exploiting was closed in the latest rewrite. The ordinance exempts Douglas County Parks & Recreation events held in county parks. The original rewrite exempted the county department entirely and Genoans felt that they as an entity of the county should get the same treatment. The town board rescinded a request to be exempted in March.