Cruise on Mesa – What Happened?

Posted by pikesan on Jun 7, 2011 in Shows & Events | 3 comments

Mesa, Arizona Cruise Night Permanently Canceled – The Real Story

If you’d never been, you were missing out! And now it’s too late.

Rather than sit and park, Lance Baker from HotRodPlanet.com, an Arizona show promoter and hot rod enthusiast, restarted a Mesa, Arizona cruising tradition on Main Street. With great weather nearly all the time, it seemed like a sure hit, but it didn’t last.

With rumors flying as to why the cruise got canceled, Lance decided to set the record straight. So in Lance’s words:

CRUISIN’ ON MAIN STREET IN MESA
Contrary to the mutiple and ridiculous rumors that are floating around, here are the facts of why the cruise on Main Street was cancelled – at least from the vantage point of Hot Rod Planet:

• From the November fund raiser event we did for the Mesa PD Honor Guard – NO – the moron on the motorcycle that did a wheelie in front of the crowd, crashing, and then hitting the young girl sitting on the curb – DID NOT RESULT in any lawsuits towards our organization. The young girl was fine in the end and her dad is long time cruiser and big supporter. Although the court did throw a well deserved $1200 fine at the major idiot on the motorcycle !!!! So enough of that rumor.

• The cruise was starting to cost the organizer (me) money out of my own pocket. These costs included bringing in outside police support in order to keep the burn-outs under control. Mesa PD is very short handed and lacking the funds to support, so we found it necessary to bring in outside help. However, some individuals just don’t get it and insisted on doing burn-outs. Although it was not our responsibility for what goes down on the street, in the event that some major incident did happen, we would still be spending out of pocket money in court to defend ourselves — and that ain’t gonna happen !!!

• The cruise was not turning into a CRUISE, but rather a park and sit-in. We already have the Pavilions and the K-Mart at Superstition Mall for that, so no reason to continue yet another in our opinion. Lot’s of work, lot’s of time just to do a once a month event.

• Although our original intentions were to start something for Downtown Mesa that would support the local businesses and benefit Mesa as a whole, they the local businesses (most, but not all) proved to be – inept, non-supportive, clueless, restrictive, arrogant, and basically just bad business people. Although — we would like to support Chef Brian at De La Cruz Bistro, Queen’s Pizza and Il Vanio for their support – they were awesome all the time !!!

• We hear that there is a “grass roots” effort to revitalize the cruise again, and we wish those efforts luck. However, without proper controls over the burn-out activities on Main Street, that could be short-lived. In the event that the Mesa PD has to step in and patrol the area, it is probably predictive that they will once again enforce the “No Cruising Ban” law that is still on the books.

Basically, it will be up to you the cruisers to shut the squirrels that are doing burnouts down. If not, they “WILL” end it for everyone permanently.

Thanks for the straight info!
For more info about Arizona show, make sure to check out HotRodPlanet.com.

What’s your take on all this?