Lowriders celebrate city's repeal of anti-cruising rule
`It's liberating,' one of the drivers says about the ability to get back on the streets
Olivia Fonseca stood near her light blue 1952 Chevrolet Deluxe, parked along Broadway late Saturday afternoon in Sacramento.
Four days earlier, Fonseca appeared virtually as a member of a group that had formed in recent months, the Sacramento Lowrider Commission, urging the City Council to end Sacramento's 34-year anticruising ordinance, which the council quickly unanimously agreed to do.
And now, with an assortment of classic cars starting to slowly maneuver up and down the boulevard, near the 4 p.m. start for an event planned before the council's action, Fonseca and others could celebrate.
“My gosh, it's liberation,” Fonseca said. “That's what it means … you don't have this fear factor that we're out here and we're going to get stopped and we're going to get a ticket.”
Cruising seems to have never totally gone away in Sacramento.
Lowriders representing car clubs have been visible around the city any given weekend night during the summer and local police reportedly quit enforcing the anti-cruising ordinance in recent years. It can now officially be done without worry.
An hour in, moods seemed largely relaxed with traffic sluggish along Broadway between about 21st and 26th streets, but there were few complaints and zero law enforcement presence.
The event attracted scores of cruisers, but also passersby who walked along Broadway with their families.
“I think it's a great idea,” one of the onlookers, local photographer Harvey Bilt, said of the cruise as he stood near family members.
“It amazes me there was a law like that originally.”
Bee coverage from March 20, 1988, two days before the city passed the anticruising ordinance, noted that cruises Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights could draw thousands.
“We have to put a stop to it,” then-council member Joe Serna Jr., who later served as mayor, told the Bee. “The problem on Franklin is that the cruising draws an unsavory element. We had beatings there a few years ago.”
The ordinance is now seen as discriminatory. Councilman Eric Guerra said lowriders are often
mistaken and blamed for side shows, revving engines and tire marks. But the reality is, these events are generally family-friendly.
Sacramento Lowrider Commission member Francine Mata noted that a diverse cross-section of society cruises, telling The Bee, “We have a lawyer, we have business owners, we have state workers, we have people that are in the political area that all lowride.”
Saturday's event had the atmosphere of a Main Street parade mixed with a classic car show and tailgating before an oldies concert.
“It reminds me of the