Havre de Grace Seafood Festival Gets OK for Liquor

The Havre de Grace Seafood Festival can sell beer and wine this summer, after the Harford County Liquor Control Board approved its permit on Wednesday. 

Due to the size of the affair, the liquor board wanted to ensure there were plans in place for containment and control of alcohol, according to board administrator Judith Powell.

More than 20,000 people attend the festival, which features live entertainment and seafood vendors. This year’s festival will run Aug. 9 to 11.

After the 2012 festival, organizers were fined $3,000 for failing to contain the alcohol sufficiently within designated areas. 

“We had some issues,” Lori Maslin, president of the Havre de Grace Seafood Festival, said before the liquor board in Bel Air Wednesday. “The gates were where we thought they should be, not where the public wanted them to be.” 

To ensure that alcohol stays in designated cordoned-off areas, Maslin said that she has enlisted more paid security officers, additional volunteers and Harford County Marines. In addition, her husband, Charles Maslin, noted that vendors will face a $150 cash fine if they move the gates and ejection from the festival if they fail to cooperate after the first violation. 

Individuals will be assigned specifically to walk from gate to gate ensuring that the boundaries are maintained, Lori Maslin added. She said she has ordered 25,000 wristbands for those consuming alcohol, with identification required to obtain one. Also, beer and wine vendors will be using tokens instead of cash, which Maslin said “will be a second level of checking for identification and intoxication.”

Liquor Board Commissioner Vernon Gauss said he was concerned about the festival only having one gate, in case of an emergency.

Maslin said that there would be an additional gate open at the end of the Oak Ridge Boys concert, and she had worked out safety plans with Havre de Grace officials already; the Havre de Grace City Council approved plans for the Seafood Festival in December.

In a unanimous vote by the Harford County Liquor Control Board, the Havre de Grace Seafood Festival obtained its permit to sell beer and wine during the August 2013 event.

“I think it’s a much better plan this year,” Chief Liquor Inspector Charles R. Robbins Jr. said.