State Department of Commerce officials say the annual sticker that is supposed to be conspicuously posted on each amusement ride is a passenger's indication that the ride has registered and passed state inspection.

But what if the department hasn't issued the 2007 purple sticker to a ride it has approved?

That's what carnival owner Chad Duchow said happened after one of his rides was shut down for safety reasons by a state inspector earlier this year.

On June 28, the state shut down Mr. Ed's Magical Midways' Hi Roller for "severe defects" that presented an "imminent danger to public safety." Duchow was ordered to make repairs before the ride could operate again.

Duchow said he fixed the ride, and that state inspectors subsequently approved it. But the state hasn't provided a registration and inspection sticker to him this year, he said.

"I've called probably four times," he said, producing a copy of his 2007 registration form listing the Hi Roller.

The lack of a sticker landed him in trouble with the local fire department in Sturgeon Bay at the Door County Fair last month. Local fire officials were making an optional check to see if the rides had been registered, something they said they do every year.

Local officials called state officials and learned that the ride passed inspection after the repairs were made, Sturgeon Bay Fire Chief Tim Herlache said. "I don't know how you can blame that on Ed's when the state isn't doing what it's supposed to," Herlache said.

Commerce officials last week couldn't explain why the ride didn't have a valid sticker after the agency permitted it to be used.

At the Grant County Fair in Lancaster late last month, Duchow could not explain why two other rides didn't have 2007 registration stickers. But Herlache said he checked with Commerce and was told they were, indeed, registered.