Business Beat

Video: Merrick Chamber fair delights thousands

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Except for rain on Saturday afternoon, the 24th annual Merrick Chamber of Commerce Fall Festival went off without a hitch on Sept. 13 to 14.
Scott Brinton/Herald Life

Rain shut down the 24th annual Merrick Chamber of Commerce Fall Festival in the middle of the afternoon last Saturday. By Sunday morning, however, the rainclouds had moved northeast and the sun came out, offering a perfect day of family fun up and down Merrick Avenue, from the Long Island Rail Road station to the famed southwestern eatery R.S. Jones, at the corner of Loines Avenue.

In the train station parking lot, children of all ages reveled in the numerous amusement rides, from the playful Frog Hopper, for which kids were slowly sent skyward for one or two stories and then returned to the ground in gentle drops, to the Pharaoh’s Fury, a pharaoh-shaped boat that swung at high speed on a pendulum.

Nearby, an assortment of hard-to-find knickknacks and fine art was sold at the crafts fair. Local businesses set up shop on Merrick Avenue, offering their wares from portable canopies positioned in the center and on the sides of the street. A host of nonprofit organizations, from the Boy and Girl Scouts to the Kiwanis Club and the American Legion, were on hand. And live music flowed from the Town of Hempstead Showmobile at Merrick Avenue and Smith Street and a stage set up outside R.S. Jones.

The Calhoun High School choir, led by Sanford Sardo, opened the fair, which attracted thousands.

“The fair is as exciting and big as ever, or bigger,” said Randy Shotland, the Merrick Chamber of Commerce president, on Sunday afternoon.

“We’re having a spectacular day,” reported Ira Reiter, the chamber vice president with Margaret Biegelman. “The sun is out. The sun is shining. Everyone is dry.”

For more on the Merrick Chamber of Commerce, check out www.merrickchamber.org.