City working to fix park after weekend festival

MARQUETTE — One of Marquette’s most popular parks is in rough shape, two days after five thousand people and more than an inch of rain fell at the Eighth Annual U.P. Fall Beer Festival Saturday afternoon.

Between the foot traffic, truck traffic and lots of rain, much of the park’s grass is grass no more. The city is in the process of cleaning up and repairing the damage.

City Manager Mike Angeli says the damage will take about two weeks to repair. There’s no word yet on if the insurance for Brewers Guild, the people who put on the Beer Festival, will cover the damage.

“They’ve been very easy to work with. They are very good at taking responsibility,” said Angeli. “They admitted what occurred was not their intent and they certainly feel bad about it. They want to make it right and they certainly want to make everything right in a short amount of time as possible.”

With thousands of people in town for the festival, Captain Mike Laurila of the Marquette City Police Department says there was an up–tick in alcohol related calls.

“It’s nothing that our officers couldn’t handle,” said Laurila. “It’s nothing that boiled over that we couldn’t take care of. Overall I think the weekend was busy, however our officers did a really good job maintaining and resolving those issues that came to head.”

The Fall Beer Festival featured 86 different breweries and 600 beers.