Bainbridge Township Police are sending out a warning after a spike in trespassing arrests into the hauntingly abandoned Geauga Lake amusement park.
The big draw for thrill-seekers and law-breakers? The Big Dipper, the old wooden rollercoaster.
“Basically it’s a big piece of rotting wood,” said Sgt. Frank Chickos. “My fear is that somebody is going to fall through a piece of broken wood and get injured.”
Sgt. Chickos said they have cited 46 people so far this year with trespassing, a fourth-degree misdemeanor that can carry a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail or a $250 fine.
The most recent was a group of seven people, ignoring dozens of no trespassing signs, caught red-handed on the wrong side of the fence.
“A lot of them actually climbing on top of the rollercoaster, on top of hills,” Chickos said.
Police said they have caught a handful of trespassers off and on since the park shut down in 2007, but nothing compares to the last several months.
Sgt. Chickos said they saw a spike after drone footage of the park came out in February and quickly went viral.
Nick Nebelski and his company DiJi Aerial Media, along with Marc Yeager, created the eerie footage. His advice to trespassers?
“Don’t do it. We did it from the drones, from the outside, from a safe distance,” Nebelski said.
He’s never set foot in the park after it shut down, but as a kid — that was a different story. He said he shot the drone footage mainly out of nostalgia.
“Everytime you watch it, you get flooded with memories of when you used to be there and visit the park,” Nebelski said. “No matter how many times you watch it, it makes you wish you could go back there again and be a kid.”
The park, which is for sale, is still owned by Cedar Fair and does have security. Police said they actually caught 55 people trespassing this year and began citing individuals after it spiked so rapidly.
Cliff West, the land development specialist handling the property, said it is still for sale. However, it has been divided up into a number of smaller parcels.
