Pierce College Tells Promoter His Fair Plans Are Too Great

It was going to be the greatest show ever staged in the San Fernando Valley.

Bruce Green, president of the Southern California Expos, a Granada Hills-based show and exhibition company, signed a contract last month with Los Angeles Community College District trustees to stage the three-day Fiddle-De-Dee Jamboree Fair and Exposition next June at Pierce College.

Green envisioned the fair as a huge spectacular, complete with a circus, 500 booths for crafts and games, a children’s petting zoo, hayrides, pony rides and adult carnival rides straight from the Los Angeles County Fair. He began signing up exhibitors and making arrangements, and had the cooperation and approval of Pierce College officials, he said.

But administrators at the college are threatening to bring down the big top on Green’s plans. They informed him Tuesday that plans for the fair will have to be scaled back, and that the circus, carnival rides, pony rides and hayrides will have to be eliminated.

“The scope of the fair has gotten considerably larger than we thought feasible,” said Pierce Vice President William Norland. “And there is a clause in the contract that says the president can eliminate any equipment that he doesn’t deem appropriate.”

Norland said administrators did not know what was planned for the fair until recently, when they received a flyer describing the scheduled events and attractions. He said school officials decided to intervene.

Norland added that Pierce officials “would like to keep the image of Pierce as an educational institution. We want events to have something to do with education rather than pure entertainment.”

Green said he had been working with the college’s building and grounds administrator, Dave Bush, on the size and location of the fair, “so they knew what was going on. I’ve done everything they told me to do, and I’ve had almost daily contact with them, and now they’re going to ruin me.”

Green said college President Dan Means told him the big attractions would not be allowed on school property. “They told me I might be able to save it as an art festival. You can’t draw people to an art festival, especially when I’ve been telling exhibitors that this was going to be the greatest show in San Fernando Valley history.”

Bush and Means were unavailable for comment Wednesday.

Green said he had already spent $20,000 to $30,000 in booking rides, signing exhibitors and in other fees. He had hoped to attract 100,000 people a day to the fair, which was scheduled for June 22, 23 and 24.

“There is absolutely no way out of these contracts I’ve signed,” he said. “This will destroy me in the business. I’ll have to go out of business.”

Campus officials earlier this year rejected a proposal by the governing board of the San Fernando Valley Fair to hold that event on school grounds, even though the board scaled down the fair. College trustees said the fair’s educational benefits did not outweigh the negative impact its noise and traffic would have on the community.

Sy Spalter of the Woodland Hills Homeowner Assn. said the organization did not oppose a small-scale event. “But when you have a large fair, it’s terror on the nearby neighborhoods,” he said.

Green said the fair would be located far away from residential neighborhoods, and that all parking would be on campus.

“I just don’t know what to do now,” he said. “All I was trying to do was to bring in a quality family fair.”