For week, pre-season car meets have been thriving in Mississauga. The local police are always around, making sure things don’t get out of hand, but they pretty much let the tomfoolery carry on. Revving engines isn’t a public nuisance in a closed commercial parking lot, especially after 9:00 pm when most stores are closed.
As long as nobody is doing burnouts, damaging the asphalt (and costing the landlord money) what;s the harm? So, on Friday night, it was another long drive out to the west end, this time for a Phantom Meets organized event. Just as we were pulling in, police were chasing people out!
The parking lot on Financial Dr is huge, and there was more than one car meet happening. The police focused on the tuner cars, probably because of all the flame-shooting, two-step.
In another corner of the lot, there were dozens of lifted pickup trucks on monstrous tires, and Peel Region Police completely left them alone. The trucks were parked in snowbanks, showing their off-road prowess. Plus, it helped the owners show off their candy-coloured under-glow lighting. The crows was a little older, a little whiter, and apparently invisible to police.
Rolling into the meet in a 1999 Mazda Miata with the roof off, it was hard not to see all those police cars! The red and blue lights could be seen from Mississauga Rd, which oddly enough, is where Peel Regional Police Headquarters is located.
Seems the police had enough of the large gatherings in their hood, and chased the gearheads away. Since we had just arrived, we tried not to draw negative attention by revving the Miata’s powerful 1.8L four-banger.
The only neutral territory in the parking lot was the Tim Hortons. If you made it to the drive thru window, you were safe. The police cruisers wouldn’t follow.
Kind of a disappointing night for those who drove all the way from the east end for a cer meet that got shut shown as quick as it got started.
It’s probably time to change up the location, and hopefully the next car meet will be in a location more interesting than a strip mall parking lot. But these weekend events still serve a valuable purpose; giving gearheads something to do other than street race.
All they want is to show off a little in front of their peers. Police really should just let it go.
An “unsanctioned car show”, as the news called it, in Las Cruces, 200 miles south of Albuquerque, ended in a shootout with 15 people injured and 3 young people dead.
Over here, a limp-wristed local mayor calls them ‘unsanctioned car rallies’ and passed a bylaw with a $5,000 fine for doing a burnout/donut in your car, plus $1,000 fine for just attending and watching.
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I never thought about anyone getting hurt or killed, like in your Las Cruces example. Toronto is such a peaceful city, the most I’ve ever seen happen at a car meet is a fist fight.
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But I would be all in favour of someone sanctioning such events, have police present, and the hooligan behaviour (burnouts, etc.) being banned.