Knott’s Injuries Prompt Parent Firm to Act

The head of Knott’s Berry Farm’s parent, Cedar Fair LP, said Friday that all wooden roller coasters at the Ohio company’s other amusement parks will be reinforced to avoid the chance of an accident like the one that injured five riders this week on Knott’s GhostRider in Buena Park.

GhostRider, billed as the West’s longest wooden roller coaster, has been closed since Monday, when a piece of wood broke free beneath the train and struck the riders. Knott’s is wrapping the stacks of lumber on which it rides with metal straps to prevent a repeat of the accident.

Similar metal straps or extra bolts will be installed on the six wooden roller coasters at four other Cedar Fair parks, said Richard L. Kinzel, chief executive of the Sandusky, Ohio-based partnership.

During a meeting in Buena Park with financial analysts, Kinzel said a recent spate of amusement park accidents, including two fatalities this week at Paramount Parks attractions in Northern California and Virginia, is as bad as any he can recall in his 27 years with Cedar Fair. He acknowledged that his biggest worry is safety.

Although the company takes precautions, he said, “you have 18- and 20-year-old kids running those rides. And no matter how well they’re trained, sometimes their minds just stray.”

But he added that “from a safety standpoint, I’m confident we’ve done everything we can.”

On other topics, Kinzel said Knott’s results this summer have kept Cedar Fair’s overall attendance and visitor spending numbers from slipping in what has been a slow summer at the company’s other parks.

He also said he believes Knott’s will wind up benefiting when rival Walt Disney Co. opens its second theme park in Anaheim in 2001.

“The increase in assets down the road will just bring [more people to the area],” Kinzel said. “All we need is a day from them.”

He also suggested that Knott’s Camp Snoopy children’s area, already replicated at Cedar Fair’s flagship Cedar Point park in Sandusky and at Mall of America in Minneapolis, will soon be coming to Dorney Park, Cedar Fair’s park near Allentown, Pa. “There might be a dog in the future there,” Kinzel said.