Crowd of 40 fights on Electric Ave.

Fireworks weren’t the only explosions in Bigfork during the Fourth of July holiday week, as a large street fight broke out on Electric Ave. and noise complaints came from business owners and residents.

Approximately 40 people were fighting simultaneously on Electric Ave. on July 1 at about 2 a.m. when the bars closed for the night. Travis Martin, owner of the Rendezvous Lounge, called the Flathead County Sheriff’s department when he saw the fights happening outside of Twin Birch Square.

No arrests related to the fight were made because the crowd had dissipated by the time the officers arrived and nobody present wanted to file any charges.

Joel Hagen, owner of Grille 459 on Electric Ave. saw the entire thing happen from his restaurant’s balcony. He estimates that he watched it happen for about 15 minutes without interruption or police intervention. Sheriff Chuck Curry said it can take between 10-15 minutes to respond depending on call volume since the department is spread throughout the county.

“We heard this huge noise and stepped out on the deck and there is 40 people in the middle of Electric Avenue throwing down and getting crazy,” Hagen said. “It was insane, just insane. Guys screaming at their girlfriends and at each other, you know, 20-year-old punks that had too much to drink.”

Hagen speculated that the fights were a result of all the bars closing at the same time and that had there been some law enforcement present, the event would not have occurred. He also said that he snuck out of the back of Grille 459 when the crowd dwindled to about a dozen and as he drove toward the highway he saw two sheriff’s cars parked at Her Alibi.

“We don’t sit back and let things occur, so I would be surprised by that,” Curry said. “That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, if they knew it was happening and there were two people there, they would have responded.”

Neither Martin nor Hagen recognized anyone in the crowd. Martin said he thinks it was mostly tourists.

“Basically, it is an unfortunate incident, I don’t like to see anything negative happen in town,” Martin said. “The only thing I can do is serve responsibly. You can’t regulate people, if they are going to cause problems they are going to cause problems, all I can do is control them in here.”

There is no recorded footage of the fight even though Mike Michlig, owner of Twin Birch Square, has six cameras installed on the property. The aftermath of the fight was visible with trampled flowers and plants.

Bruce Solberg from the Bigfork Chamber of Commerce said the Community Foundation for a Better Bigfork will install cameras with views of the street in the near future.

Michlig said damages on Electric Ave. were not limited to just July 1, but also extended into the week of the Fourth of July. He also said the noise from the bars on Electric Ave. was keeping residents up at night.

“The place was trashed this morning, we had torn shrubbery and bar debris everywhere,” Michlig said on July 5. “We have the remnants of urination on the stairwell, blood on the sidewalks, this is the worst I have seen in the 11 years I have been here.”

However, Solberg said Bigfork had more law enforcement in town this year than ever before with four mounted sheriffs and six additional deputies during the daytime. Curry also said that law enforcement was stationed in Bigfork throughout the Fourth of July and the entire night afterwards.

“We’ve spent a fair amount of time investigating the claims,” Curry said. “It’s a local business who hates the bar next to him and he alleges often that there’s illegal activity and we’ve invested a fair amount of time and not found the claims to be founded.”

Solberg said most of the garbage downtown after the Fourth of July was because of the parade and that it was a mild holiday because it was during the middle of the week.

“Saturday (June 30 and July 1) was kind of unusual for what we got going on down here, I’m sure it was out-of-towners,” Solberg said.

Jack Paulson, a resident of Electric Ave. from just down the street from where the incident occurred said he also called the sheriff’s department that night at about 11 p.m. or midnight, but his call was in regards to the amount of noise coming from both The Garden Bar and the Rendezvous Lounge.

However, as an unincorporated village, Bigfork does not have a noise ordinance. But, that isn’t Paulson and Michlig’s only complaint. Both expressed concerns about the open container laws not being enforced.

“I talked to the sheriffs in my driveway and told them you can see kids walking down the street with open containers and they don’t do anything about it because they don’t want to start a riot,” Paulson said. “It gets worse every summer.”

Curry refuted this claim, stating that open container is enforced in Bigfork and throughout the county. He also said that a noise complaint in Bigfork would require a county ordinance be put in place.

“The goal isn’t to pack people into jail, if we see someone with an open container they get told to pour it out or go inside,” Curry said. “It has nothing to do with being afraid of a riot. We don’t pack people into jail or write a lot of tickets, but it allows us to maintain order and that’s our goal.”