Lawsuit bans car buffs from shopping center

[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.

[Got the Bug]

Originally Posted by 427Aggie

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.

That's how they've made the Santa Clara get together work. One person's name is on the permit. He's got a group of volunteers who do any clean up that's necessary. Amazingly enough, they haven't had any problems and people don't leave any trash behind. You'd have to be an idiot to do a "spirited exit", since you see police driving by and the police station is right around the corner.

We'll see how long it holds together.

Luckily, our local Cobra groups have a couple of restaurants that welcome our attendance. They probably get up to 40 or more Cobras, Coupes, and GT40's on a nice summer Saturday at the Rock House in Livermore.