CLEARFIELD – Much controversy has been brewing in the past few days about whether Nazi items should or can be sold at the Clearfield County Fair.
The issue even wound up in Clearfield County Court when Clearfield attorney Steve Jarrett filed a motion for injunction to block the sale of such merchandise. That motion was denied by Clearfield County Judge Paul E. Cherry Wednesday.
After the court proceeding, some media outlets reported that the woman selling the merchandise, who declined to give her name, planned to pack up and leave the fair.
The tent, near the cattle barns, was still there Thursday afternoon, and the proprietor of the booth said she did not want to talk to the media.
“I’m not going to the press any more,” she said. “I’ve already said enough.”
Decidedly absent from the tent was the Nazi memorabilia that so incensed Jarrett and others, some of whom wrote letters to GantDaily. (For those letters, click on the Opinion channel at right.)
Jim Leitzinger, Clearfield Borough Council president, said he and other council members were upset about the items being sold. Because of that, he contacted the fair board and asked them to require that the woman remove the merchandise from the items for sale. At that time, noon Wednesday, he was told the fair board was meeting on that exact issue.
A short time later, Leitzinger said he was notified that the woman was pulling the items from her display.
“I don’t know of anybody on borough council that would like to have these items sold anywhere because of what they represent,” Leitzinger said.
“The borough council does not endorse anything like this.” Leitzinger added that the fair board acted “swiftly” in resolving the matter.
Some items that have offended others are still on display at the stand in question and other booths in the park. Those items include the Confederate flag, more commonly called the Rebel flag. That banner was the flag of the Southern United States during the Civil War period but has come to represent slavery and white supremacy.