Strategies to Stop Car Meet Ups in Neighborhoods

[Anonymous]

My neighborhood, which is largely residential and generally quiet, has a small shopping center with an oversized parking lot on its edge. On the weekends, large groups of cars (maybe 60) have started to meet in this parking lot (usually empty after 8pm), rev their engines, blast music and basically hold the neighborhood hostage to noise. The shopping center owner has been notified but can't seem to do anything about it. The police are called every weekend and they eventually show up but do nothing (not even giving out citations for the noise).

I live several blocks away and I can hear the cars inside my house with the tv on. I can't imagine what it's like for the folks who live on the street near the shopping center.

If the owner and the policy won't or can't do anything, is there any other recourse?

(I'm really looking for concrete strategies, please.)

[Anonymous]

Which shopping center and location is this?

[Anonymous]

Who are these people meeting up? Teens, car enthusiasts, some sort of interest group, what?

[Anonymous]

If you can get the whole neighborhood together, you can arrange to boycott the businesses until they get their landlord to close the lot and night

[Anonymous]

Is there still a "7 on your side" type segment on the news? Your town should have noise ordinances, I don't know why it would not be enforced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you can get the whole neighborhood together, you can arrange to boycott the businesses until they get their landlord to close the lot and night

This is probably the right answer. They need to close the lot

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can get the whole neighborhood together, you can arrange to boycott the businesses until they get their landlord to close the lot and night

This is probably the right answer. They need to close the lot

Neighborhoods got together and successfully fought off the loud hot rod car “cruising” up and down Van Nuys Blvd in LA in the 1980s. It wasn’t illegal until the city with police enforcement made it so. That may be the case here as well, ie, revving engines and making noise, driving in “donuts” and screeching tires in a parking lot or in residential streets is not necessarily illegal. It’s up to the neighborhoods to work with the county to prohibit that activity. P ok ice enforcement comes next.

[Anonymous]

Boxes of carpet tacks all over the road.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Boxes of carpet tacks all over the road.

This is OP - that's exactly what I thought as well!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can get the whole neighborhood together, you can arrange to boycott the businesses until they get their landlord to close the lot and night

This is probably the right answer. They need to close the lot

Neighborhoods got together and successfully fought off the loud hot rod car “cruising” up and down Van Nuys Blvd in LA in the 1980s. It wasn’t illegal until the city with police enforcement made it so. That may be the case here as well, ie, revving engines and making noise, driving in “donuts” and screeching tires in a parking lot or in residential streets is not necessarily illegal. It’s up to the neighborhoods to work with the county to prohibit that activity. P ok ice enforcement comes next.

This is OP. Yes, I think you're probably correct that we'll need to find a way to work with the county. I was just hoping for a quicker solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there still a "7 on your side" type segment on the news? Your town should have noise ordinances, I don't know why it would not be enforced.

I like this idea! I'll look into it also.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can get the whole neighborhood together, you can arrange to boycott the businesses until they get their landlord to close the lot and night

This is probably the right answer. They need to close the lot

Yes, both responses are useful. I had also thought about if we could replace the cars with another activity in the lot but I'm just not sure what to propose as an alternative that would take up the same space at the same time on a regular basis.

[Anonymous]

I fantasize about the day they have EMP guns designed specifically to take out car meetup trash:

They need it for all of the illegal dirt bikes and atvs too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can get the whole neighborhood together, you can arrange to boycott the businesses until they get their landlord to close the lot and night

This is probably the right answer. They need to close the lot

Neighborhoods got together and successfully fought off the loud hot rod car “cruising” up and down Van Nuys Blvd in LA in the 1980s. It wasn’t illegal until the city with police enforcement made it so. That may be the case here as well, ie, revving engines and making noise, driving in “donuts” and screeching tires in a parking lot or in residential streets is not necessarily illegal. It’s up to the neighborhoods to work with the county to prohibit that activity. P ok ice enforcement comes next.

Sure, but in the meantime, the parking lot is private property right? So it makes sense to do what you've said (try to enact local ordinances), but also, try to put a little pressure on the property owner to get them to kick them off the lot for trespassing

[Anonymous]

Who is your local representative? Reach out to their office and let them know what is going on. Do you have a neighborhood homeowners association? They are often well equipped with knowledge on who to reach out to locally who can help. If none of that several spilled boxes of nails might just do the trick