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URBANA — 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."
DAV members — and what Poling says is a growing legion of supporters — plan to camp out at the corner of Bradley and Lincoln avenues and in front of the main entrance to the Urbana fairgrounds, starting at 5 p.m. Friday.
Poling said recent publicity over the conflict has led other veterans organizations — among others — to join the picket.
"Three motorcycle groups — one called the Dinosaurs, one called Stone Cold and one called the Legion Riders — have informed us they will also be taking part," he said.
Fair board President Mike Kobel said Monday he is aware of the DAV's plans.
"It is what it is," Kobel said. "In a nutshell, I would say we are aware of it and anticipate it. The picketing has been scheduled for some time, and they obviously have a right to do so."
Until this year, the DAV had sold beer at the fair for more than 50 years, according to Poling. It had been, by far, the biggest annual fundraiser for a group with 550 veterans in Champaign and Vermilion counties, many of whom served in conflicts dating back to World War II.
But after the DAV received between $10,000 and $13,000 a year in profits selling cold ones at its familiar pavilion location between 2007 and 2012, the fair changed the rules, Poling said.
From then on, the fair board said that it, not the DAV, would pay for all the beer that would be sold during the fair. Furthermore, fair representatives, not the DAV, would begin collecting the money at the end of each night, according to Poling.
During last year's fair, Poling said, DAV volunteers sold $23,340 worth of beer. But, according to a document provided to the DAV, the fair board incurred $16,545.73 in expenses along the way, including paying for a band, sound system, the beer, insurance, security, portable toilets, ice and stage rental.
That left $6,794.27 of revenue, of which $3,397.14 was given to the DAV.
Kobel said the fair went from receiving 50 cents per beer to 50 percent of proceeds, which he called a more reasonable deal given that the fair fronted the money for other expenses at the pavilion.
But DAV members were livid about the sudden drop in revenue. Ensuing offers from fair organizers to patch up things went nowhere and led to the current friction.
The DAV plans to voice its displeasure between 5-7 p.m. for eight of the fair's nine days. On July 31, the night country singer Chase Rice performs, they plan to turn out at 3 p.m.
Kobel said the fair board is offering to donate a portion of this year's beer sale proceeds to VFW Post 5520, AMVETS Post 3, the Chez Family Foundation Center for Wounded Veterans' Housing and Higher Education and the Veterans Assistance Commission of Champaign County.
He said the board also reached out to the DAV to offer a portion, but never heard back.
"I wish they were able to understand both sides of the issue," Kobel said. "There isn't much more we can say from the fair board's perspective."
