ANTIOCH – Beware: If you promote or organize a street race, sideshow or motorcycle stunting in Antioch, you could be face a hefty fine or end up in jail.
In an effort to curb the growing number of illegal street races and reckless driving exhibitions, the Antioch City Council on Tuesday took a first step to approve new rules that would make it illegal to advertise or organize such events on highways or public parking lots.
Though councilmembers originally considered fines for spectators, they decided innocent bystanders might get caught in the middle and eventually settled on introducing only new penalties for those who organize and promote the illegal street events. Such activities have been linked to increased traffic accidents, property damage and personal injuries, officials say.
Under the new sideshow ordinance, those who organize or advertise any illegal street races, sideshows and reckless driving events through fliers, social media or otherwise online could be fined up to $1,000 or serve up to six months in jail or both.
Some, like Councilwoman Lori Ogorchock, thought the new rules did not go far enough. She asked the city to look at ordinances in San Francisco, Oakland and Alameda County whose fines increase on subsequent offenses and have other potential penalties attached.
“I do want to move forward with an ordinance, but I just believe it needs to be stronger,” she said.
Mayor Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe, however, said that because Antioch was a general law city, it could not increase the fines more than what state law prescribes. That can only be done by charter municipalities, like Oakland.
“With most of our fines, we’re at the maximum amount that we’re allowed based on California law,” he said.
Mayor Pro-Tem Tamisha Torres-Walker pointed out that even cities with strong fines don’t necessarily stop sideshows.
“Even all of these communities, with even stronger policies, haven’t figured out how to actually stop them from happening,” she said. “And so, I think I’m still in support of what we have today, given (that) we can’t raise the fees anyway because we aren’t a charter city. There have to be proactive measures to make sure that they don’t happen in the first place, rather than just being equipped to respond to them when they do happen.”
Torres-Walker also said that many of the regular street events the community complains about aren’t sideshows at all but rather cars spinning out or doing doughnuts with a handful of spectators.
“So we have a lot of issues to address,” she said.
The city has been dealing with sideshows and street races for the past several years, from proactively trying to stop them from happening, to sending out drones and calling for outside police aid to deal with the activity.
Antioch Interim Police Chief Brian Addington said the city once had the “best system in place” for identifying organizers and stopping the sideshows before they happen.
“That has fallen by the wayside and it’s a much more reactive response now,” he said.
For several years, the traffic division had proactively worked on stopping such activity, but it “was decimated,” Thorpe-Hernandez said, pointing to “unfortunate circumstances.” In the past, the mayor has said the entire division was wiped out when numerous officers were placed on administrative leave as part of an internal investigation into officers sending or receiving racist and inappropriate text messages.
Other cities have passed measures authorizing police to arrest and lock up sideshow spectators for up to six months or fine them as much as $1,000. Pittsburg, Oakland, San Jose, Hayward, Vallejo and Fairfield have adopted similar measures, as did Alameda County.
Addington, who was previously Pittsburg’s police chief, said though the spectator law was on the books, Pittsburg has never arrested anyone for that.
Antioch City Attorney Thomas Lloyd Smith also noted that the new rules are just part of the equation and that there are a lot of layers of penalties under the California Vehicle Code related to sideshows.
“What we pass sort of aids the police department in policing these activities and trying to do the work, but the actual work is still done on the ground by the police department in their surveillance,” he said. “And so this just supports them in the efforts to try to prevent these sideshows and speed races in our community.”
Under state law, drivers in such illegal activity could face penalties, including jail time of 90 days or six months if they cause injuries, a $1,000 fine, 40 hours of community service and suspension of one’s driver’s license for 90 days to six months. Increased penalties also are imposed on repeat violators or violations resulting in serious bodily injury.
But despite law enforcement efforts to enforce the existing state regulations, the California DMV reported a significant increase in 2021 in the number of reckless driving citations statewide and an 80 percent increase in excessive speed violations. The California Highway Patrol has reported as of May 2023 that, in the past five years, 264 collisions statewide were attributed to street racing and sideshows, resulting in 30 death and 124 serious injuries.
After some discussion, the new rules were unanimously passed. The ordinance will return for final approval — known as a second reading — next month.
