BLAINE COUNTY TURNS 250

Sandy Shores Marina hosted the "250 San Andreas" Independence Day event this week, drawing what organizers are calling record attendance and what residents are calling a lot of standing around. The event, held along the marina waterfront, ran from evening to midnight and included food vendors, live music and a fireworks finale. Most of it went fine. Some of it did not.

Parking and admission, originally promoted as free, ended up running attendees $250 at the gate — a number several people noted was, at least, thematically consistent. The free shuttle service was less consistent, arriving roughly whenever it arrived.

Once inside, guests found more than forty food stalls, two simultaneous music stages, and enough sponsor signage to make it difficult to locate the actual event underneath it all. Every visible surface carried a logo, a QR code, or both. Music from both stages ran at the same time most of the afternoon, which meant no one could really hear either one clearly, just a general, ongoing hum of noise that occasionally resolved into a guitar solo.

Vendor rows included several firework stands, along with tables for Guns 4 Kids and Ammu-Nation, both of which displayed rifles, handguns, and boxed ammunition openly on folding tables a short walk from the funnel cake line. Nobody seemed especially alarmed by this, which was itself a little alarming. A few parents were seen steering their kids toward the face-painting booth instead.

The Epsilon Program also had a noticeable presence, running Kifflom chants from speakers near its booth for most of the day and handing out pamphlets to anyone standing still long enough. By late afternoon it was hard to walk more than a few yards without hearing it again.

Near the edge of the grounds, a plywood stunt ramp — already being referred to locally as the "death ramp" — drew a crowd of its own. Two motorcyclists attempted jumps off it during the evening and were both injured, one seriously enough to require transport by the on-site EMS team, which was at least positioned where it was supposed to be. Neither injury has been described as life-threatening.

The night ended with the advertised fireworks display over the Alamo Sea, which was, by most accounts. According to sources, the firework show costed organizers close to a billion dollars.

As the crowd began leaving, a security incident broke out near the Ammu-Nation vendor area involving a person dressed as a clown. According to witnesses, the individual took advantage of the post-fireworks crowd to remove a significant amount of ammunition, at least one firearm, and other equipment from the unsecured vendor tables, then set fire to several points around the venue before leaving the scene. Vendor tents and at least one food stall were damaged.

The Blaine County Sheriff's Office and the FIB are both investigating. No arrests have been made, and the suspect has not been located.
Weazel News will continue to follow this story as the investigation develops.