Lawndale

The City Council was unable to decide Monday whether to take over the Lawndale Trolley Town Fair, a two-day event being organized by the Chamber of Commerce and scheduled to take place Dec. 21-22.

The chamber plans a beer garden at the fair, but chamber representative Don Bubar said the organization is having difficulty obtaining and paying for $2 million in liability coverage.

The Trolley Town Fair is an expansion of Lawndale’s annual Fun Fair, previously sponsored by the city as a one-day, nonprofit event. This year, the chamber took over management of the project with $8,000 from the city, but Bubar told the council that liability insurance alone could run as high as $7,000.

The chamber said it believes the beer garden is necessary to make the fair profitable.

Mayor SarAnn Kruse and Councilman Terry Birdall said they think the city should extend its liability coverage to the event because it is being coordinated under a contract with the chamber, but the other council members disagreed.

“If there is just one claim, it would break this city,” Councilman Harold Hofmann said.

At the suggestion of Councilman James Ramsey, the decision on whether to eliminate the beer garden or make the fair a city-coordinated event again was postponed until next Monday’s council meeting.