Council willing to discuss a biker street fair but opposes
becoming full blown host
The idea of San Juan Bautista becoming the new biker Mecca for
the Fourth of July was summarily shot down by citizens and council
members alike Tuesday night during a packed meeting at the Mission
Town’s City Hall.
The proposal, put forth by Councilman Chuck Geiger, was not only
opposed by Sheriff Curtis Hill but ridiculed by citizens, some who
said they were horrified by the thought of bikers trampling their
hard-won public baseball field and outlaw gangs verging upon riot
on the town’s historic main drag
– and main source of tourist revenue.
Council willing to discuss a biker street fair but opposes becoming full blown host
The idea of San Juan Bautista becoming the new biker Mecca for the Fourth of July was summarily shot down by citizens and council members alike Tuesday night during a packed meeting at the Mission Town’s City Hall.
The proposal, put forth by Councilman Chuck Geiger, was not only opposed by Sheriff Curtis Hill but ridiculed by citizens, some who said they were horrified by the thought of bikers trampling their hard-won public baseball field and outlaw gangs verging upon riot on the town’s historic main drag – and main source of tourist revenue.
But nearly four hours into the meeting, when all but about five concerned citizens had left, the council agreed to discuss the possibilities of such an event at their next monthly meeting, to be held March 21. If it is to happen at all, Geiger said, it would be along the lines of a family street fair celebrating the Fourth of July.
“The bikers are going to go to Hollister, and there’s going to be a spillover to San Juan,” Geiger said, the day after the meeting. “We’ve always had hundreds of bikers come to San Juan during the event, to the restaurants, the bars. Here’s an opportunity to sell some merchandise and bring some revenue to the city through a street fair.”
But should it become a biker street fair, it will be as appealing as a riot between outlaw biker gangs, if the comments made at the meeting are any indication of public sentiment on the issue.
“Hollister has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on this,” said longtime resident Tony Boch. “We can’t even control our chickens, man!”
The chambers exploded in laughter and applause.
Earlier, the council allowed a representative from an out-of-town production outfit pitch the idea. The San Juan Bautista Independence Day Rally would be organized and set up by two companies – Biker Design of Florida and DalCon Promotions of Los Angeles – both seasoned event throwers that specialize in biker fetes.
Joe O’Day of DalCon said the companies would put up the money to organize the event, up front, and that the main drag of Third Street would be closed off to traffic except for motorcycles, with sideshows and booths on the side streets. People could make lots of money subleasing their storefronts to merchandise hawkers.
“People have already booked hotel rooms in this area for July, so we feel we should make these people happy,” O’Day said.
It didn’t wash with the crowd.
San Juan resident Rachel Ponce said she was horrified of the idea that bikers would be setting up camp on the Abbey Field baseball park, a project that many citizens and do-gooders in town have worked to build and fund for years.
“My first reaction was [that it would be] scary and dangerous,” Ponce said to the council. “At Abbey Park we have Little League and games scheduled during that time. It would ruin it for the kids.”
Ponce added that allowing bikers to set up camp in the field adjacent to San Juan Bautista School on the Alameda, a parcel belonging to the school, would be illegal and untenable since no booze or tobacco is allowed on school property. She also recalled the days when San Juan hosted Rodeo Days, and how a certain faction of people would always linger after the festivities and get out of control.
“I remember seeing a wave of people and then the SWAT team coming down the street,” Ponce said. “We can’t risk it for a quick one-time fix. I hope our leaders find solutions to our financial problems the old-fashioned way.”
Earlier, Councilman Geiger had introduced the idea saying that an injection of money into the town’s budget would benefit everyone.
“This is a way for merchants to make money or rent out their store fronts,” Geiger said from the council dais. “They [DalCon and Biker Design] are offering a significant amount of money. Last year the budget had a $90,000 deficit.”
As people in the chambers groaned, Mayor Dan Reed said, “OK, OK,” in an attempt to stop Geiger. At several points throughout the discussion item, Councilman George Dias repeatedly attempted to get a roll call vote from the council on the matter in an effort to kill the idea on the spot. The City Attorney advised against the thought, saying it was only a discussion item and that a vote was improper at the time.
But the one who threw the most water on the idea was Sheriff Curtis Hill, who for nine years has had to contend with Hollister’s Independence Biker Rally and the lawlessness that came with it. Hill said he wanted to see the promoters’ proposal, and couldn’t understand why no one had contacted him before this moment to get his input on the concept.
Hill gave a dire warning to the council about what to expect. He started with the astronomical costs. Since it would be an event sanctioned by the city, the extra law enforcement needed would come with a sky-high price tag – at item that didn’t appear to be figured into the promoters’ proposal and the very death knell that caused Hollister officials to close down their biker rally for the first time in nearly a decade.
Local law enforcement officers and other Hollister city officials have also said in the recent past that even if a rally was not officially sanctioned by the city, the state is in such a financial bind that Sacramento bureaucrats would probably deny reimbursement for money spent on security.
“If they’re going to throw a party, they need to pay for it up front,” Hill told the council. “Rachel is correct. I was one of those SWAT team members walking down the street that year in ’97. It was a full-blown riot. We could never figure why these people would continue to hang around, and at about 4 p.m., windows [on the main street] started getting busted out.”
Interestingly, DalCon Promotions is the events company that organizes the notorious Laughlin, Nev., rally every year. In recent years, the Laughlin rally has become riddled with violence between outlaw biker gangs – the Mongols and the Hell’s Angels.
“In Laughlin they had three murders, and it’s spilling into Hollister,” Hill said, touching upon a confrontation that occurred at Hollister’s last rally between the two biker groups, which was quelled in the nick of time simply because some officers happened to be going by the scene at the time. “It would have exploded.”
No one in the audience seemed to be in favor of the idea of a San Juan Biker Rally, and especially not town activist and history buff Rebecca McGovern.
“This is still historic San Juan Bautista,” McGovern said. “I don’t know who came up with this cockamamie idea …” she went on, as people in the back asked her to speak up.
She turned around and flatly said, “It’s not worth a pot to -.” Again, the audience erupted in laughter.
McGovern added that the $50,000 to $60,000 sprinkler system recently installed in Abbey Park would be wrecked if bikers were allowed into it.
“We’re not set up for this,” she went on. “It would be tragic. We’d have to call for FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] to come down and save us.”
Geiger tried to fight for his idea, with little success. He asked Hill if it weren’t true that everyone expects the bikers to come anyway, and wouldn’t it be prudent to be prepared for the spillover into San Juan? He also pointed out that the Hollister rally, while it’s gone into the hole for the past three years since the state quit helping to pay for the extra law enforcement costs, was never run by professionals who put the money up front.
But Hill made some further observations.
“It’s a different layout [San Juan from Hollister],” Hill told Geiger. “You can’t close the streets. Your fire department won’t have a booth. I guarantee you they’ll be running First Aid. I’m the one that’s going to set the safety standards for this community, not a promoter coming into town.”
“I’m going to kill it right now,” Mayor Reed interjected. Geiger wanted to continue bantering the pros and cons with the Sheriff, but Reed would have none of it. When Geiger tried to speak to the concerns of another citizen who spoke before the podium, Reed gaveled the councilman down again.
The council went on to grapple with other issues, and four hours later when the audience had all but emptied out of the building, they conceded to placing the item back on next month’s agenda for further discussion.
Geiger felt buoyed by the prospect. He said the alternative plan is to have a street fair during the biker rally that is expected to occur – albeit unofficially this year – in Hollister.
“The point is, I want to create an event that will pull other people in the community over, not just bikers, but a nice mix, hopefully through the merchandizing,” Geiger said after the meeting. “And not just biker stuff, but Fourth of July stuff, American antiques. How do we let the people know, hey, it’s not just a biker thing only?”
