Lawsuit bans car buffs from shopping center

[PANAVIA]

What this Regency thing is -- is a Campaign against their clients being anything but a conformist.

-you must

- wear -'these clothes
---'drive "this" car (FF*#* prius)
---dont be special
-- dont take pride in anything.

Barf.

[427Aggie]

Originally Posted by PANAVIA

What this Regency thing is -- is a Campaign against their clients being anything but a conformist.

-you must

- wear -'these clothes
---'drive "this" car (FF*#* prius)
---dont be special
-- dont take pride in anything.

Barf.

Lots of things come with these meets that people don't think about.

Liability is a HUGE one. Someone wrecks or god forbid gets hurt by a person acting stupid and the owner is going to have to pay. Hell we have to pay when someone trips in the damn parking lot and says "Well the ground wasn't level"

Trash and cleanup...lots of the meets around here end up with crap all over the parking lot not to mention many regular patrons won't walk through the sea of cars to get to the stores.

Its a damned if you do damned if you don't issue with the shopping center owner. The car people aren't their tenants and don't pay rent. They cost money in the form of security, trash cleanup and liability. When the tenants complain they will side with the people paying rent..period..end of story.

We can ***** all we want, and yes I work in this business, but the long and short is this is private property. They have to look out for their interest.

Sucks for the coffee shop owner but I'll bet they went into the center because of Von's and the draw that it has.

[khansmith]

Ultimately; the property owner can make up the rules (outside of being a thug). With that said, I think the best tactic is for folks to organize, get an understanding with the property owner first, figure out a way to make it beneficial for both parties (i.e. rules of engagement, maybe a permit with proceeds going to a favorite charity, some cool marketing, etc). It just saddens me that we just go to gun slingin instead of figuring out solutions. I mean come on....there is liability if someone spills milk in the store and I slip! $hit happens but it ain't neglegence. And you will get some young punk doing burnouts from time to time...they should get a ticket and and the guys at the show should discourage that type of stuff anyway (mostly because they probably have their families there and don't want their kid to get run over). Anyway, I just don't see why folks on either side look at this as an opportunity rather than a lawsuit.

[Bill Bess]

I've been to numerous carshows and most are very well organized and controlled. Most folks just want to show their respective rides and share information.
Unfortuantely the squirrelist groups I've seen have been some cobra drivers, doing burn outs and racing through parking lots....maybe it's just an AZ thing?
I hope this wasn't the case in LA.

[*13*]

I just had lunch here on tues. Seemed like a good replacement spot for a sunday meet. 9229 Winnetka Ave Chatsworth, CA 91311 Huge parking lot & most of the businesses are lunch or theater types. Someone might approach the owners if the current replacement doesn't work out.

[trularin]

Never did understand the lack of business sense for some of these shop owners.

When I was a kid, we used to hang out at an assortment of parking lots to "socialize". The local Walgreens had more people in it on Saturday night, than the entire week. Ran out of condoms one weekend...funniest thing talked about for weeks.

[RedBarchetta]

Someone had to mention "ricers"...now there are Honda Fury Exhaust System sponsored links popping up on the ad bar.

[Gunner]

Originally Posted by RedBarchetta

Someone had to mention "ricers"...now there are Honda Fury Exhaust System sponsored links popping up on the ad bar.

Having run AdBlock for years, I get to surf in a blessedly ad-free online universe.

Personally, I'd rather make a small direct contribution to a site or forum from time to time than wade through inline ads.

[DAVID GAGNARD]

Originally Posted by Bill Bess

I've been to numerous carshows and most are very well organized and controlled. Most folks just want to show their respective rides and share information.
Unfortuantely the squirrelist groups I've seen have been some cobra drivers, doing burn outs and racing through parking lots....maybe it's just an AZ thing?
I hope this wasn't the case in LA.

We use d to have a "cruise nite" the first saturday of the month at a strip mall. This went on for a few years till the ricers showed in HUGE numbers.......The classic/old cars parked on one side and the ricers on the other side. after the nite was over, you could easily tell which group was parked where.......

Our side was spotless and quite all nite long, the other side had loads of trash/broken bottels/can and just general garbage everywhere, the place looke d like a dump,super loud blaring "rap crap" and do-nuts and burnouts after dark.........

Well, guess what happened after a few months of this??????? We lost the place, can't say I blame the owners either.....trash clean-up alone would have been enough to close the show, not counting the general liabilty for the idiots doing do-nuts and burnouts, how someone never got hurt is a miracle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The a Vette club tried to get the cruise nite going again and the owners of the property said o-k as long as it is only classic/antiques, the first ricer shows up and ya'll are history!!!!!!!!!!!!!

David

[Jamo]

Obviously, some of you failed to notice that the property owners first contacted the coffee house about the problem three years ago.

I unfortunately deal with this type of thing during labor disputes when I try to keep union organizers out of shopping center parking lots...intentionally filling up parking lots is a common tactic, not to mention various other issues which arise (handbilling, picketing, etc.).

If the owners allow one group of folks to come in on a semi-organized basis, and do nothing about it, then they cannot stop others...very much akin to what folks usually argue when commenting on Shelby's failure to enforce whatever rights he had for so long.

I would think that Vons' customers who want to come in and park quickly, shop and leave at all hours would be damn inconvenienced. A single check-out counter in Vons probably matches what the other businesses take in during the same period of time.

An argument often made is that shopping centers are like downtown shopping areas, so folks have the same right as they would with public parking areas. Yup...but they forget you can't block Main Street without a permit.

As for the security company...sounds like a FUBAR situation to me. I deal with many security companies, and there are bottom feeders tactic-wise.

[dcdoug]

Here's a test. I wonder what ads we get with Good Housekeeping?

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by dcdoug

Here's a test. I wonder what ads we get with Good Housekeeping?

Can't we just send in some money and make these embedded sponsored links just go away?

[Gunner]

Originally Posted by patrickt

Can't we just send in some money and make these embedded sponsored links just go away?

Maybe a running counter somewhere, listing the overhead cost the proprietors don't want to pay and donations against it?

[DAVID GAGNARD]

Not to be taking sides,cause I love to go to cruise nites and cruise ins, there are fun and I like the people and the cars,BUT, sit in the strip mall/parking lot owners shoes for five minutes:

Here's the case:
your gonna let from 100 to maybe 300 cars come and take over YOUR private property (parking lot) for THIER enjoyment, you stand to MAYBE gain a little publicity and a few dollars for a few sales they may generate and then you may lose some sales cause other customers can't get to the store and get a decent parking spot.

In return, you get to clean up the mess they leave behind at your expence and if God forbid, someone gets hurt/mugged/robbed or anything while there on YOUR private parking lot, your gonna get sued for it, something you had nothing to do with and NO control over........but in the end, YOU WILL pay for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOW WHAT WOULD YOU HONESTLY DO AS THE OWNER????????????????

David

[Gunner]

We used to have an electronics swap meet every first Sunday morning of the month. It ran fine for years and years and then a small group of sellers started doing things like blocking off a quarter of the lot for themselves, forcing parking out into adjacent lots, and leaving more and more trash behind - sometimes an entire pile of junk and boxes they couldn't sell. No surprise, the meet had to move from location to location and finally evaporated, and none of the long-timers could blame any of the businesses one bit.

Perhaps these things should only take place if a club or someone takes responsibility for behavior, organization, cleanup etc. - AND has some enforcement privileges like being able to tell offenders to leave. The problem with the swap meet was that it was completely ad hoc, no one in charge, no one responsible except the sellers.

[Joe Wicked]

Unfortunately it usually is the few that mess it up for the masses. I can also understand the owners point of view. There are a few of these still around here locally, one that meets every Friday night had to move locations because it was at a Sonic Drive Inn in a Walmart Parking lot. Walmart had no issues with it as long as we kept to the far end of the parking lot on the one side (away from the doors for the customers). It ran for years like that and walmart even had some people come in (needed a screw driver to fix something, tums or whatever) until one night when a few "Stunters" on bikes showed up and started doing wheelies all over the parking lot including right across the front of the store. Several people from the meet tried to get them to stop and they refused. That Walmart store stopped it from then on and even has a sign posted that no club meets can take place on the property without prior written permission. The permission to gather permit must be displayed during the meet. Even Girl Scout troops have to get advanced written permission and hang the notice from the table to sell cookies there now.

[Trueoo7]

Originally Posted by Joe Wicked

Unfortunately it usually is the few that mess it up for the masses. I can also understand the owners point of view. There are a few of these still around here locally, one that meets every Friday night had to move locations because it was at a Sonic Drive Inn in a Walmart Parking lot. Walmart had no issues with it as long as we kept to the far end of the parking lot on the one side (away from the doors for the customers). It ran for years like that and walmart even had some people come in (needed a screw driver to fix something, tums or whatever) until one night when a few "Stunters" on bikes showed up and started doing wheelies all over the parking lot including right across the front of the store. Several people from the meet tried to get them to stop and they refused. That Walmart store stopped it from then on and even has a sign posted that no club meets can take place on the property without prior written permission. The permission to gather permit must be displayed during the meet. Even Girl Scout troops have to get advanced written permission and hang the notice from the table to sell cookies there now.

So hows does getting a permit prevent any of this? Aren't people still going to throw garbage on the ground and possibly trip and get hurt?

[CCX 33239]

Originally Posted by jhv48
Oh yeah, I forgot this is California. Home of 99% of all the a--hole lawyers on earth!

Isn't that an oxy-moron anyway???

[427Aggie]

Originally Posted by Joe Wicked

Unfortunately it usually is the few that mess it up for the masses. I can also understand the owners point of view. There are a few of these still around here locally, one that meets every Friday night had to move locations because it was at a Sonic Drive Inn in a Walmart Parking lot. Walmart had no issues with it as long as we kept to the far end of the parking lot on the one side (away from the doors for the customers). It ran for years like that and walmart even had some people come in (needed a screw driver to fix something, tums or whatever) until one night when a few "Stunters" on bikes showed up and started doing wheelies all over the parking lot including right across the front of the store. Several people from the meet tried to get them to stop and they refused. That Walmart store stopped it from then on and even has a sign posted that no club meets can take place on the property without prior written permission. The permission to gather permit must be displayed during the meet. Even Girl Scout troops have to get advanced written permission and hang the notice from the table to sell cookies there now.

Originally Posted by Trueoo7

So hows does getting a permit prevent any of this? Aren't people still going to throw garbage on the ground and possibly trip and get hurt?

The permit will make the holder responsible for the trash and any costs associated with the cleanup. Parking lot maintenance is part of CAM for the centers and as such is billed to the tenants, so you can see that if the costs go up the tenants pay for it and might not be happy. The only way to keep the bikes from causing the problem they did is to have the owner buy into the meet and the person with the permit must have off duty cops to do security and run them off. Its the only thing I've seen work. Problem is that your aren't going to find many shopping center owners willing to do it. We won't let them have meets in our centers, mainly for the liability.

[Gunner]

Originally Posted by Joe Wicked

Even Girl Scout troops have to get advanced written permission and hang the notice from the table to sell cookies there now.

Now, see, I'd pay extra to shop at a store that flat-out bans door sellers. It doesn't matter whether I like/agree/approve of them or not, I just want to get in and out of the store without running a gahd-darned gantlet!