Posted on 02/17/2006 8:19:08 AM PST by SmithL
HOLLISTER, Calif. - The City Council has canceled an annual Independence Day motorcycle rally that attracted more than 100,000 bikers a year from around the country and inspired the 1950s Marlon Brando outlaw biker movie "The Wild One."
The council voted 3-2 on Feb. 6 to scrap plans for this year's Hollister Independence Rally, arguing that the city cannot continue paying for police patrols at the event.
The city paid $250,000 last year after the rally's nonprofit organizing group said it could not pay, city officials said.
But Mayor Robert Scattini, who voted for keeping the rally, said the council should reconsider the issue when it meets again next week or risk losing significant tourism revenue.
Besides, thousands of bikers with an emotional attachment to the rally could decide to come anyway without an organized rally, Scattini said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
What about all the extra sales tax and 'ticket tax' during the event that would have come into the city? Hopefully some other city wanting cash will set up.
You are right. Another city would love to have the revenue.
Mytle Beach, SC is trying the same thing. they are not planning to scrap the rally. (450,000 bikes last year), But they are implementing so many ordinances that someday the rally will pack up and take their $billion$ elsewhere.
Bet there are many other places willing to fill in. May be like the clowns around Dallas's Fair Park who complained about the noise from a new GranPrix race held there several years ago. (mostly poor blacks who screamed "this wouldn't happen in a white neighborhood") The organizers moved it to a mostly white neighborhood/city (Addison) which claimed it brought in over a million dollars for the area during that one race.
The Booze Fighters won't like this.
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