The Fair has been shut down. What happens to the food, the rides and the farm animals?
Fifth-grader Marcos Andujar was looking forward to showing off his lambs at the Miami-Dade County Youth Fair on Friday. Then his family received a phone call.
The fair was canceled.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez announced the decision early Thursday, only hours before the fair was set to open at 3 p.m. Concern over the novel coronavirus led to the cancellation, like other big events.
Marcos was the only elementary student participating in the livestock auction this year, which includes cattle, swine and lambs. The other students are in high school. All of them were upset, said Amanda Andujar, Marcos’ mother.
“They’re crying, they’re angry. They’ve worked really hard for this,” she said. “This isn’t something they’ve only been working on for a month or two ... they’ve worked really hard feeding, watering, cleaning” the animals for the fair.
The students were participating at the livestock show and auction through Miami-Dade’s Livestock 4-H Club. They would receive an award and a cash prize depending on their placement in the show and auction, which would be based on the condition of the animal.
This would have been Marcos’ second year participating in the show. Instead, he had to accompany his mother to the fairgrounds Thursday afternoon to pick up the animals — and watch his family chase after a lamb that briefly escaped while being shown to a Miami Herald reporter.
“I don’t understand why we couldn’t have had something like a private show where the show was closed down to spectators but the show was still open for kids to show their animals or maybe an online auction,” said Andujar, who is one of the program’s leaders.
Miami-Dade Youth Fair reviewing options
Fair President and CEO Eddie Cora says he’s “shocked” by the carnival’s shutdown but that he understands why the decision was made.
“This is unprecedented. We have not faced this in the past,” Cora said during a news conference at the Midway on Thursday while workers began to dismantle the rides and booths.
He said it’s still not clear what the financial ramifications of the fair’s cancellation will be but that he knows it’s “huge and can’t be downplayed.”
“I don’t think they can be measured between ourselves, ride company and food concessionaire ... there is no way to recoup the millions of dollars that went into getting this ready for our community,” he said.
Gimenez’s decision to cancel the county fair and other large-scale events comes a day after health officials announced the first positive case of COVID-19 in Miami-Dade. Broward has seven cases.
Cora says the fair will take the next few weeks to review options. Vendors are discussing the possibility of donating their 21-day supply of food to community organizations.
The CEO hopes the fair could come back later this year.
It’s still unclear if refunds will be offered to those who bought tickets ahead of time online, at schools or in other stores such as Sedano’s Supermarket.
This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 5:32 PM.
