Select Board Conditionally OKs May Carnival at Berkshire Mall

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The springtime carnival will return to the Berkshire Mall property in a couple of weeks, if the hosts reach an agreement with emergency medical services.

On Monday, the Select Board approved a community event application for Gillette Shows' carnival from May 1 to May 11, pending a reasonable donation to the Ambulance Gift Account for EMS services.

"This isn't a new concept. We discussed this after last year's carnival," EMS Director Jen Weber said. 

The department saw an "exponential" increase in the need for services at the event as its attendance continues to rise. In 2024, there were 20 transports to the hospital over the two weeks, not counting refusals or minor injuries.

"We ended up, last year, mobile posting up there just to make sure that we were there in case something happened," Weber said.

"So we had discussed it last year, and it also came up in a department head meeting that really it's come down to either they need to hire an ambulance to sit there like County Ambulance or Northern Berkshire, or we would be willing to mobile post for a donation into our gift account so that we are able to kind of compensate not being able to be where we usually are, not having bathrooms that aren't mobile."

The two entities have not yet agreed on the donation amount, and a monetary value for services hasn't been set. Mobile posting means that the EMS is still on duty, and mutual aid would be called if a situation arose while Lanesborough wasn't on site.

"We went from like two transports the year before last year to 20, and it just seemed like it was necessary more for us to be up there, because of all the people," Weber said.

"They had a lot more people last year."