The first day of the Addison County Fair and Field Days is officially in the books. People hoping to buy certain merchandise this year will be disappointed. For the first time, fair officials have banned the sale of items featuring the Confederate flag.



“For probably a lot of us, the Confederate flag makes us think of Bo and Luke Duke from Dukes of Hazard, but for others, it’s a really sensitive issue and a sensitive issue in this country right now,” says Field Days President Jim Foster. “It’s not part of the fabric of Addison County Fair.”



The conversation began when Piper Harrell of Cornwall, Vermont created a petition a couple weeks ago against the sale of these items. It has been published on Change.org. This, after presenting the petition to the Field Days board.



“We had a congregate who said ‘I don’t go (to the fair), I know exactly what that symbol means to me,’ and it was a black congregate,” says Harrell. “We quite simply asked the board to not promote that symbol at the fair.”



She has support from her church minister Reverend Barnaby Feder of Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Middlebury. The petition gained more than 500 signatures in six days.



“There are many other ways to represents and be proud of your heritage that don’t send out a message of hate,” says Feder.



For the vendor who sells these items, Hooligans Designs, long-time employee Jeff Grenier says he’s been selling confederate flag merchandise at Addison County’s fair for seven years. He says not being able to sell it violates First Amendment rights.



“It’s a flag people use because they don’t want the federal government in their business, which is why people want it now,” says Grenier. “So far, most people have asked to get that kind of stuff so, not having it here hasn’t done anything except make people want it more.”



“We’re not saying ‘don’t have the flag on your truck, or tattooed on your arm,” says Feder. “We just don’t think it should be part of the fair’s overall message.”



Hooligans Designs does about 40 fairs during the summer, selling Confederate flag memorabilia from Pennsylvania to Maine. Also this year, the Caledonia Fair has banned the sale of similar items for the first time.



Addison County Fair and Field Days runs until Saturday night.

