Security company at Pensacola fair told they can’t work after anonymous complaint with state
Pensacola FL Oct 23 2017 The Pensacola Interstate Fair is underway but a private security company hired to work the fair is staying home for the weekend following an anonymous complaint with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Severance Security Services was hired to provide security to the fair, but on Friday night two officers with the Department of Agriculture told the security service they couldn’t work the fair after an anonymous complaint was called in over their license.
Garland McKenzie, team leader for Severance Security Services and a retired Pensacola Police Department officer, told the News Journal the officers said they had received a complaint about the company.
McKenzie said the company is licensed to operate as a security company in Florida but because security officers didn’t have all of the documents on-hand at the time, they could not work security for the fair.
The Department of Agriculture’s website lists a license number for Severance Security Services, LLC. as a security agency but also the license has a status of “application incomplete.”
Don Frenkel, general manager of the fair, said the firm is fully licensed and accredited.
Frenkel said he doesn’t know who would have made the complaint but said the security company will go before a judge on Monday to ask for an emergency order allowing the company to work.
The security of the fair will not be affected, Frenkel said.
Officers with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Fish and Wild Life Commission are providing security to the fair.
Sheriff David Morgan announced in September his agency would not provide security for the fair as it has done for the past 83 years because of a dispute about how the fair wanted to assign jobs.
Morgan adopted a policy to have deputies work off-duty events on a rotating basis when he came into office but for the past several years the fair had been grandfathered into the old policy of allowing a lieutenant control over work assignments at the event.
This year the fair no longer qualified for the old policy, according to the Sheriff’s Office, but fair organizers wanted specific jobs covered by the same deputies throughout the event.
The dispute led to the sheriff’s office and the fair breaking ties, and the fair bringing in other agencies and companies to provide security.
The fair runs through Oct. 29.
PNJ
