NEW YORK – A popular haunted house attraction in Nassau County is in the eye of the hurricane if it doesn’t keep out the crowds. Failure to do so runs the risk of being shut down.
The Nassau County fire marshal’s office issued twelve tickets to operators of the Bayville Scream Park haunted house Saturday night for lack of physical distancing and other fire code violations.
“Everything was packed and it looked like a riot might break out,” said Chris Lopez, who went to Bayville Scream Park with pre-purchased tickets for the 7:00 pm session; But when she arrived with her teenage son and her son’s friends, that reservation didn’t mean much because they had to wait in a line that started outside the park and went inside the place.
“There is no physical distancing,” Lopez said. “The security guards disguised with bull horns told people to stay two meters away, but nobody does it because we were crowded like sardines.”
The fire marshal’s office said it received multiple complaints. When they arrived, they saw the crowd. “There were about 200 to 300 people waiting in lines on the main public street trying to get into the house,” said Assistant Fire Chief Michael Uttaro. “The backing of people waiting to get in was out of control.”
Lopez says they waited four hours in line, says he spent $ 300 on the tickets but couldn’t even see anything.
Executive orders say the facility must operate at 25 percent of capacity, but firefighters say there was much more waiting outside the haunted house. They will allow the park to reopen this weekend, but must limit the number of people waiting outside to 50.
“It is a severe warning. If we come back here this weekend and the same situation starts to build, it will be closed,” Uttaro said. “No more warnings and that will be it for Halloween.”
Multiple calls to Bayville Scream Park and the owners were not returned.
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