It could be last call for a decade old beer festival held at the Maryland State Fairgrounds after an incident in which two people were stabbed.

Fairgrounds officials say they want assurances from Baltimore-based Trigger Agency, the promoter of the Brewer's Association of Maryland Oktoberfest, that additional precautions will be implemented to ensure safety at future events.

Howard "Max" Mosner, fairgrounds president, said he spoke with representatives from the Trigger Agency and the Brewer's Association  in late October. He requested that the organizers submit a clear-cut proposal for how to prevent "unfortunate" incidents from happening in the future.

"We went over what they had done, what provisions they had taken as far as keeping people from having too much drink and what kind of security they had on the premises to deal with it," Mosner said. "I said my people here are very concerned. I said they want to look at what you propose to do to keep these kinds of things from happening in future, if we allow you to come back."

Mosner said the fairgrounds executive committee would likely review the proposal on Dec. 16.

"I hate to play what-if games but we'll look at what they say and see if that is adequate," Mosner said.

Fairgrounds officials said they hope the new plan will help prevent incidents like the double stabbing that took place on Oct. 9.

On that day, Nicholas Atkins, 27, and a friend were walking from the fairgrounds grandstand, where Oktoberfest took place, toward one of the property's exits. Atkins allegedly started threatening his friend and then pulled a knife and started cutting his friend. The friend ran away suffering from severe, but non-life threatening wounds, according to a police report.

Atkins then stormed into the Cow Palace, another exhibition hall at the fairgrounds, and attacked a stranger. He was eventually subdued and taken into custody by Baltimore County police.

Police said there was no known reason for the attack.

"The sad thing is, I think this was the 10^th year that the Brewer's Association has been doing this, and there has never been anything quite like this." Mosner said.

Hugh J. Sisson, founder of Heavy Seas Beer and former president of the Brewer's Association, said he was optimistic the show would return to Timonium after a few "enhancements" will be made the festival. 

"It's not determined that the show will come back, but I think it's likely that it will come back to that location," he said. "There are lots of things that have already put into place that are clearly designed to put an element of control and responsibility  into the process. Can it be abused if somebody really wants to? Sure. But that's why we have security."

In the 10 years that the festival has been held in Baltimore the Brewer's Association have progressively taken added measures to ensure safety, he said. Some of the changes have included shortening the length of Oktoberfest, which was once an eight-hour production and shrinking the portion of beer being served. 

While he said he couldn't provide details about the plan for next year, Sisson mentioned that organizers would likely continue to increase security and possibly shorten the festival down to five hours total.