Night Shift Is a Fair Freshener

A few minutes before midnight most people at the Orange County Fair are chugging their last beer or trying to finish that funnel cake. A couple of exhausted children are asleep on their fathers’ shoulders.

Jerome Hoban checks his watch, then says into his walkie-talkie:

“OK, so waddaya think? 12:15? All right.”

The fair officially closes at midnight, but if people are still clamoring for rides, officials will keep it open, Hoban says.

As director of facilities, Hoban, 31, is in charge of ensuring everyone goes home and the grounds are swept clean and ready to go the next day.

With daily attendance around 49,000, a whole lot of garbage piles up, enough to fill four 14,000-pound compactors and three 40-yard dumpsters every day, Hoban says.

But Hoban has help. The fair contracts with two maintenance companies, Lopez Works and CiM Maintenance Inc., each with about 30 employees working the graveyard shift. A dozen fair employees also chip in.

As the witching hour passes, Hoban snaps an order, and suddenly the signal comes: the Ferris wheel goes dark. Other lights follow.

In a matter of minutes, plastic sheaths are dragged over the booths, the gas for the Australian Fried Potatoes is turned off, and stragglers are shooed home.

Maintenance workers come out from the shadows in pickups and carts that crisscross the midway.

“Pushing all this trash around, it’s a lot of work,” John Edwards, 41, of Costa Mesa, says from his cart. “And then when the sun comes up, it’s like your body just says it’s tired.”

Maintenance workers sweep the midway throughout the day, but vendors dump their trash in large, gray containers, which are cleaned overnight. The night shift also has to water grass, clean toilets and compact trash.

“We get to see all the dirtiness,” Edwards says.

On this particular night, Hoban rides in a cart from lost-and-found to the first-aid station. He checks on crews, giving them the go-ahead to call it a night. “I was ready 20 minutes ago,” says Jeff Droadston, a first-aid paramedic. He says he handed out about 2,000 bandages that day and is ready to go home.

In the livestock arena, the tents are dark and the sheep bleat in their stalls. Most of the petting-zoo animals stand quietly. Only the baby zebra, the water buffalo and the alpacas sleep outside their owner’s trailer.

But at 1:30 a.m., there’s still a lot of work -- and play -- to do in the carnival.

At the Big Water Race, Brian Villarreal watches as workers haul large stuffed animals to refill the game, in which a player hits a target, starting another device that races upward, all to get a prize.

One man washes down the counter and another sweeps around it.

Villarreal, 26, ticks off items on his inventory list.

“We don’t want to be walking with all this stuff while we’re operating,” he says. “That looks really tacky.”

The game, which made its debut at the fair, is also one of the most popular, he says. That’s good -- but it also means the race crew tends to work later because of all the stock that needs refilling.

“Most of the time, these guys don’t get out until 3,” he says. “But it’s worth it because we get the winters off.”

Most carnival employees work only the fair season, which runs from February to October. Some are permanently employed and travel with Ray Cammack Shows, the company that operates the midway. Others work only a couple of fairs.

Across from the water race, Alyssa Abott and Ashley Kasll, both 14, are shooting hoops after a night’s work.

Abott came from Phoenix this summer partly to work for Ashley’s mother, who owns a few midway games, and to hang out with Ashley, her best friend.

She grimaces at the thought of her summer job. “It’s a lot of work when you work,” she says. “It’s really long days.”

“But it’s a lot of fun when you play,” Kasll says, throwing her a ball.

Tonight they’re just goofing around, but some nights they’ll play games for money, and that, she says, is “awesome.”

At 2 a.m. the pair will go to bed, and so will Hoban, confident now that the night’s cleaning operations are going smoothly.

But in the parking lot, Dulce Landeros isn’t even halfway through her shift. The 15-year-old Riverside girl is among dozens of workers sweeping the lots. The work is boring and lonely, she says, but it does have its perks.

“Sometimes you find stuff,” she says.

“So that’s cool.”

The “stuff” includes $20 bills that slipped out of people’s pockets and once, a cellphone that she gave to her uncle.

And that’s what Howard Sirotta loves about his job. Sitting at the California Lottery Commission stand, he’s shuffling lottery cards he’s picked up that day and watching “House of Wax” on a small TV.

“Look,” he says, pointing at the cards.

“Every day I’ve been here I’ve won at least $35 on someone else’s throwaway tickets.”

Sirotta, 45, was hired by the commission to guard the thousands of lottery tickets the stand holds, but just by scouring the grounds nearby, he’s managed to make some money on the side.

“Most of the time, people didn’t scratch all the way or they threw it away without looking,” he says. “I’m telling you, transients should go in the business of hanging out by lottery stands.”

At 4 a.m. Sirotta still has eight hours before his shift ends, so he’s come prepared with a stack of movies: “Seabiscuit,” “Dodgeball,” “Diary of a Mad Black Woman.”

And even though the streets outside are empty, leaf blowers and large trucks roar past him inside the fair gates, and co-workers wander over to check out his DVD player.

Sometimes, others join him for part of a movie while they sip coffee.

By himself, he’ll just go through his cards and count his winnings.

It’s a different pace of life, but he likes it that way; he’s been working graveyard shifts for 20 years.

“I’m a people person,” he says. “But it’s less stressful working at night.”