By KENNETH LIPP/YachatsNews
Crab. Commemorative glasses. Crowds. Fermented grapes.
And flashing red and blue lights.
That was the scene in Newport last weekend with the return of the Seafood & Wine Festival for the first time since 2020, adding thousands to the city’s population and bringing a beefed up law enforcement presence that made more than 400 traffic stops over three days.
Looking for a way to boost the city’s seafood industry and bring tourists in during the slowest months, the Greater Newport Chamber of Commerce started the Newport Seafood & Wine Festival in 1977. During its busiest years it’s brought together wine and seafood vendors and 15,000 to 20,000 people, booking the area’s hotels solid.
But the pandemic stopped the gathering the last two years.
This year was a successful return to the in-person event, even with Thursday’s opening canceled due to a late winter snow storm. The chamber estimates 15,000 people came through the festival turnstiles into the tent next to Rogue Brewery in South Beach on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with an estimated 9,000 tickets sold.
A festival with thousands of people, mostly from out of town, eating and drinking for hours creates the risk that some will get behind the wheel under the influence. As it has in the past, the chamber provided a shuttle service between the festival and hotels, and the city issued seven special event taxi licenses.
The Newport Police Department regularly has to deal with the doubling of the city’s 10,000 population during busy summer weekends or holidays. But last weekend, there were 10 or more extra police officers in a joint drunk driving operation using a mobile Oregon State Police unit.
Police made more than 400 traffic stops during the weekend and wrote over 100 tickets. Out of those, it appears 12 people were cited for driving under the influence.
Locals took notice. Social media posts complaining of being unduly followed by police as well the sheer number of people pulled over drew hundreds of comments. Some added their grievances, while others said they were grateful for the added enforcement with thousands of extra people in town to drink wine.
And though relatively few people were actually cited for anything more serious than a traffic, license or insurance violation, there was perhaps some cause for vigilance given that several local bars closed early Saturday night due to a rowdy element in the after-hours crowd.
Calling in backup
With the local population expected to double for several days, Newport police chief Jason Malloy said his department asked for assistance from state police. Malloy said they’ve changed their approach to the festival over the years, shifting from a focus on security around the site to having personnel on the streets.
Lt. Brian Tucker, commander of OSP’s Newport station, said the agency sent in its mobile response team, which it deploys to bolster local law enforcement during large events. Tucker said the team, which draws heavily from troopers in the Willamette Valley, was mobilized frequently to protests in Portland during 2020.
State police dedicated two troopers to patrols Thursday night and seven troopers Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They made a total of 287 traffic stops, Tucker said, which yielded 111 citations and six DUII charges.
Newport police also had additional officers on duty, more than doubling the typical three who work weekends. Officers responded to 260 calls and made 128 traffic stops, with four DUII citations, Malloy said. They made a total of 12 arrests, including two juveniles cited for possessing alcohol.
Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office patrol commander Lt. Karl Vertner said he believed his deputies issued two DUII citations.
That is a substantial increase from a typical winter weekend, when Newport might see a handful of traffic citations and a couple of drunk driving charges.
Malloy said he’d seen comments about the stepped up enforcement efforts and some questions about whether it was necessary given the number of people actually caught drinking and driving.
The police chief noted that the majority of people pulled over were given a warning and said his goal was to have zero drunk drivers.
“The ramifications of DUII are too significant to not employ available resources,” he told YachatsNews. “Our entire job was prevention and deterrence. We were in a position to get assistance and we didn’t want to refuse it. And we didn’t know what to expect after a two-year lapse.”
Malloy said the seafood and wine festival did not historically bring lots of DUII charges, but some years the Newport department has been overwhelmed with calls and incidents.
About 80 motor vehicle violation cases have so far been filed in Lincoln County Circuit Court from the weekend, almost all of them citations issued in Newport, many occurring on Highway 101 and issued by Oregon State Police. That indicates there are at least several dozen citations not yet filed from the weekend.
Fourteen of the citations allege the failure to wear a seat belt and no other violation. Twenty are speeding tickets, six in combination with other violations related to licensing, registration or insurance. A few are other moving violations such as an illegal lane change or failure to obey a sign or signal. One ticket was written for illegal window tinting.
No DUII charges have yet been filed with the court from Friday through Sunday. There was one citation for refusal to take a field sobriety test.
It is not clear how many were related to the seafood festival.
Spillover to bars
The seafood and wine festival ended at 8 p.m. Friday, 6 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday. When some festival goers got out Saturday, they apparently continued to look for a party and sought out the city’s limited nightlife.
Managers of three bars open that evening, the Bay Haven Inn on the bayfront, Two Broke Bartenders downtown and the Sandbar in Nye Beach, closed their establishments between 9-10:30 p.m. because of unruly customers.
“We chose to close the doors early tonight,” the Bay Haven posted to its Facebook page at about 2 a.m. Sunday after closing several hours earlier. “Seafood and wine people lost the ability to act like adults. They are all on ‘time out’ until Sunday.”
Bay Haven owner Linda Lewton told YachatsNews a group came in intoxicated looking for more drinks. They got upset when bartenders refused them service and began taking drinks from other customers, Lewton said.
She said she closed at 9 p.m. — three hours early — to protect employees, telling the crowd the building was at capacity and fire code required that they close down.
“I’ve never seen so-called adults act like that before,” said Lewton, who’s owned and operated the Bay Haven for 13 years.
Newport mayor Dean Sawyer said he applauded bar owners for protecting their staff and potentially giving up profits. He noted that Newport has lost two large bars since past festivals, leaving the large influx of visitors to head to smaller venues operating with off-season staffing levels.
Sawyer is a big supporter of the festival and, although not himself a drinker, has worked at a beer booth for seven years. A retired Newport police officer, he’s also patrolled at the festival. A private company now provides on-site security.
“Back then we were arresting people left and right,” Sawyer said, noting that it’s become much more orderly over the years. He said he thought people were particularly loose this year after a two-year hiatus.
Offering alternatives
Bobbi Price, who was serving in her last year after 13 years as the Newport chamber’s organizer of the festival, seemed surprised to hear of the large police presence in town. She said she understood that the number of DUIIs had steadily dropped because of steps — including enforcement — that everyone has been taking over the years.
Price said festival organizers meet with law enforcement prior to the event to go over on-site security, which the festival hires and coordinates.
“People coming to the festival know they’re not supposed to be drinking and driving,” Price said, pointing to constant shuttle service with six buses between motels, other tourist areas and the festival tent in South Beach. The shuttle service cost the chamber $15,000 this year.
The chamber usually sits down with its staff and outside agencies to walk through issues, what worked and didn’t. That will occur again this year, Price said.
“We really do make an effort to make it safe for everyone in the community,” Price said.
- Kenneth Lipp is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at KenLipp@YachatsNews.com. Quinton Smith, editor of YachatsNews, contributed to this report.
Newport bars did the right thing by closing early due to those that had been partying all day at the Seafood and Wine event.
We staffed up and turned more than 30 people away at the door the first day of the event, calling taxis, paying for taxis, and serving water. It was terrible. We lost a lot of revenue as our regulars wouldn’t come in to eat, or play pool during the iconic Seafood and Wine festival event.
We had little choice but to do the right thing and make last call at 10 p.m. to protect staff and community.
Linda Lewton, the Owner of Bay Haven reported she too closed early. We are allies in the bar venue and have a mutual strong goal of keeping our customers and staff safe. Although we appreciate all the law officers and their long hours in maintaining security and safety of the Seafood and Wine festival. Our businesses would have benefited from the experience instead of crippling us with labor and product. The only ones that profited in this historic event was the Chamber of Commerce. I’ve heard of no benefit to local bars that stepped up.
Going forward, next year, God willing, park the Seafood and Wine festival goers at the fairgrounds at 5 p.m. Shuttle them to and from event. Then do a pub visit by taxi or shuttle to local venues. Leaving it up to the server on the choice per individual to serve or not, as usual. Return the folks to their hotels, and by shuttle to festival the next day.
Open festival later rather than earlier so all of Newport can benefit from the heavy traffic of event goers. It’s just an idea perhaps, in the right direction.
The city and the police did an excellent job. The bartenders, with only a few arrests also did a remarkable job. I commend Newport for that.
Onward and upward.
Tamera J. Rensink
2 Broke Bartenders
Newport needs to get rid of the Seafood and Wine Festival. It brings no local revenue to the fisherman and wine vendors not from here. Locals don’t need the havoc it causes or the added baloney that comes with it.