SEVERAL youngsters brandishing imitation BB guns that fired plastic pellets ran riot among the crowd at Martinborough's fair on Saturday.
Fair convenor Steve Lillyston said yesterday about 10 children and teenagers bought the imitation guns from a stall and for several minutes were let loose firing pellets at stallholders and intimidating
fair-goers.
Mr Lillyston said the incident had been dealt with as quickly as possible but unfortunately not until a number of stallholders had been shot at and others frightened by the realistic-looking guns.
He said nobody was hurt but such incidents had "huge potential to be very dangerous and the sale of the guns was absolutely unacceptable".
"We jumped on it very quickly but unfortunately didn't get to the stallholder before he had sold all the guns."
It was the first time the stallholder had been at the fair. Organisers had been under the impression he would be selling mainly good quality soft toys "but what we saw on Saturday was a lot of imported junk".
Mr Lillyston said stallholders were already subject to a rigorous selection process but it will be tightened even further to ensure no more imitation guns or any other imitation weapons are brought to the fair.
Mr Lillyston said Saturday's event ? the first of two fairs with the other scheduled for March ? was a great success, with a record 485 stallholders including some as far afield as Hamilton and an estimated 25,000 people enjoying the day.
Although numbers were slightly down on last year, probably because of the cooler weather, and some stallholders' takings were down on last year, "it had all gone off very very well".
