FAIR: Bottom line isn't families

The Fair Board's recent decision to shift from charging $0 to charging $5 per person for every man, woman and child in combination with the decision to change from allowing alcohol in an isolated area - the "beer garden" - to opening up alcohol consumption throughout the entire arena can only be described as greedy and purely revenue motivated at the expense of the very community they claim to serve.

The potential revenue increase is too obvious to overlook, but who's going to pay it? Will families of three or four small children be willing to pay $5 per person to watch a rodeo? Sure $5 doesn't sound like much but what about $25 or $30? Would you be willing to pay $30 or more to watch the rodeo? Probably not and neither will a young family, but that's OK with the 2010 Fair Board because they really don't want these fiscal families clogging up their grandstands anyway - especially with all those non-alcohol drinking kids! The new structure solves this problem though.

Under the new 2010 program couples only, of legal age, are expected to pay the $5 "cover charge," fill up the seats and drink down the highly profitable barley based beverage. Good-bye cheapskate children and penny pinching parents, hello beer thirsty beaus and guzzle gals and hello to a lot of what's truly important to the Fair Board - money. At least the Sheriff is right next door with the overcrowded jail. Oh well, that's not the Fair Board's problem.

TOM DORR

Post Falls