San Jose council approves plans to curb sideshows
Officials aim to punish organizers, add street barriers as deterrents
Alarmed by a recent spike in sideshows and illegal street races that have drawn participants and spectators from across California, San Jose officials are making plans to punish people who organize and promote such events and add new street barriers to serve as deterrents.
As part of a slew of anti-street racing proposals approved by the San Jose City Council this week, the city intends to set up physical barriers in at least five popular sideshow intersections and potentially add stationary license plate readers there. The city is also crafting an ordinance that would make it a crime to organize an illegal street racing event, including promoting, supporting or encouraging them on social media.
In addition, the city is looking to spend more money to address the problem and create a fulltime racing enforcement unit in the city’s police department. As it stands now, reports of sideshows and street racing are either handled by officers on overtime or those who must be pulled off their regular patrol duties.
“This is a very dangerous situation and it presents dangers not just for these sideshows, which are enough on their own, but it presents dangers to every neighborhood in the city when it’s stretching our police force so thin,” Councilmember Maya Esparza said during Tuesday night’s council meeting.
The Bay Area has long struggled to curb orchestrated sideshows, which have spread from Oakland to San Jose and, more recently, to San Francisco.
About a year ago, Oakland police pledged to step up enforcement in the wake of several sideshows that led to serious injuries and property damage. Still, weekend sideshows continue to draw hundreds there and elsewhere. In San Francisco
last weekend, a driver struck and injured four pedestrians while performing stunts during a sideshow in the Mission District.
In San Jose, illegal street racing in recent years has killed at least seven people, including participants and innocent bystanders. In 2015, a 20-year-old driver, Alyson Snow, was killed when struck by someone believed to be street racing. Later that same year, three teens were killed in a street race. In October 2018, Lorraine Garcia was killed when her taxicab was struck by a car alleged to be street racing. And in August 2019, Miguel Angel Rodriguez and Ernesto Chapa both lost their lives in a deadly two-car race on San Jose streets.
In an effort to stop the illegal races and their deadly consequences, San Jose officials two years ago adopted an ordinance making it illegal to knowingly be a spectator
at a street race or sideshow, either while the show is underway or when people are preparing for it to begin. Under the ordinance, spectators can be charged with a misdemeanor and face fines of up to $1,000, six months in county jail or some combination of the two.
Although the spectator ordinance has given San Jose police officers an additional tool to deter illegal races, city leaders say that cracking down on the events’ organizers is the next necessary step.
The proposed new law — dubbed the “promoter” ordinance — would seek to hold illegal racing orchestrators accountable for damage caused to any property by such events, including public roadways, and for the cost of all police officers, vehicles and helicopters used to respond to a sideshow.
“We as a city can stand up today and loudly tell sideshow entities that we
will hold them responsible for planning, initiating and taking part in these illegal events,” San Jose police Capt. Todd Trayer said Tuesday.
In recent weeks and months, street racing and sideshows have become even more prevalent in San Jose, with some events drawing hundreds of cars and turning into violence involving gunfire, which require massive police responses.
According to SJPD data, only 43% of people cited for driving in or attending a San Jose sideshow over the past three months were from the city of San Jose. The remaining 57% cited traveled to San Jose from more than two dozen cities across California, including San Francisco, Livermore, Los Angeles and Stockton.
“That’s a big number, and it gives us an idea of the draw that the city is having right now from people outside
of the city,” Trayer said.
A resident by the name of Ricardo, who lives on Communications Hill, has witnessed multiple illegal races from his living room recently and is growing concerned about the level of violence associated with them, he told the city council Tuesday night.
“This is not some kids just showing off their cars,” Ricardo said. “This is far worse, and if we don’t do anything, things will only get worse.”
In addition to developing an ordinance aimed at penalizing event organizers, the city will be installing new paving markers and deterrent barriers in five areas across the city, including the intersection at Tully Road and Ruby Avenue. Leading up to intersections, drivers will see barriers meant to narrow down lanes. And they’ll see half-circle islands within intersections to deter people from making donuts.
The city’s Department of Transportation estimates the pilot program will cost $200,000.
“We don’t know if they’re going to be effective,” said Laura Wells, the transportation department’s deputy director. “But we’re hoping this will work. … It’s something that can be done quickly and more inexpensively than if we look at doing something more physical.”
Aman Diwaker, a resident of South San Jose, commended the city for pursuing the latest remedies and urged officials to continue to take “whatever precautions needed” to tackle the sideshows and save lives.
“We consider ourselves victims,” Diwaker said about residents of neighborhoods where the illegal activities take place. “But really the victims are the parents of these kids (who die as a result of the races) that have to suffer.”