SUPPORT OUR VETERANS? Local county fair board pushes Disabled American Veterans group out of beer tent fundraiser; protests start tonight

Guns Save Life defends your right to defend yourself.  We also defend those who have fought to defend our lives – our veterans.

We are a staunch supporter of America’s current and former armed forces members.  We honor their service and sacrifice, made to protect and defend freedom, liberty and our way of life.

So it doesn’t sit well with us when veterans are ill-treated by people who would lie about them, steal from them or cheat them out of what’s due to them.

In Champaign County, IL, it seems there’s a little of all three going on if you listen to the guys who have been running the beer sales tent at the Champaign County Fair since around the end of World War II.

Local veterans volunteer to serve beer at the roughly 10-day event as a fundraiser to benefit the Disabled American Veterans’ local chapter.  These vets have operated their beer garden without significant issues relating to rowdiness or drunkenness for decades as their primary money-maker, earning them upwards of $25,000 that’s used for local disabled vets and their families.

Back in the day, the local fair board would get $.25 per beer sold.

But since Barack Obama’s inauguration, local political appointees to the Fair Board (Democrats?) have made life rough for the DAV members and their fundraiser at the fairgrounds.

They began by increasing their take on each beer.  It went to $.50 per beer, and more recently, 50% of the net proceeds after they charged all sorts of expenses towards the beer tent (and opened a second beer tent near the grandstand which the fair board operated, keeping 100% of the revenues from that tent).

Last year, despite the second beer tent at the grandstands, the vets still managed to sell $23,340 in beer.

Months and months later, after repeatedly hounding the fair board for their money, they got a check for less than $3400, and a notice that they were out as the beer sellers.  14 cents on the dollar.

Their eviction was despite the infrastructure the veterans donated (and constructed) for the beer garden over the decades.

If you can spell raw deal, you’re on the right track.

It’s not sitting well with the vets and it doesn’t sit well with us.

They are launching nightly protests at this year’s Champaign County Fair, picketing from 5p-7p each night on the sidewalks near the entrances to publicize what’s happened – and to encourage folks to boycott alcohol sales at the fair.  In fact, if people stayed away from the Champaign County Fair altogether this year, it wouldn’t break the veterans’ hearts.

The local newspaper is covering the story, too.

URBANA (News-Gazette) — In three days, the beer war between the Champaign County Fair and the local chapter of the Disabled American Veterans will come to a frosty head.

Fair organizers say it will be business as usual when the annual event opens Friday with the return of stock car racing.

But DAV members are calling for chaos — a boycott on beer sales by all fairgoers. It’s a message they plan to spread all nine days, months after the fair board cut its decade-long ties to an outfit that had relied on fair beer sales to keep it afloat.

“We are going to be everywhere there is a sidewalk and where the traffic flows,” local DAV Commander Marty Poling said. “The police have told us we can picket and express our views everywhere there is a sidewalk and where traffic flows.”

This isn’t the first run-in the DAV members have had with the local fair board.

In 2013, during the Grandstand Concert night, the announcers noted that all beer sales proceeds would go to the local Disabled American Veterans chapter, according to vets who were there.

That money never appeared, according to the DAV.

If this doesn’t sit well with you, make yourself a sign or grab an American flag (or a “Don’t Tread on Me” Gadsden flag) and come out to the Champaign County Fairgrounds tonight, or on subsequent nights.

The ground rules:  Stay on the sidewalks, try not to obstruct traffic by crossing the street too often, and don’t loiter.  You must keep moving.  Because this is not a “permitted” rally, concealed carry is welcome for licensed individuals.  Lastly, have a good time while expressing your First Amendment rights to support our troops.