A rash of East Bay sideshows this weekend involved one in Oakland with a hit-and-run, but the mayor of Antioch claims he sicced drones on one of the sideshows, and he’ll bring the daredevil drivers to justice.
KRON4 reports on three separate sideshows in the East Bay this past weekend: one in Antioch, one in Hercules, and another in Oakland, where there was a reported hit-and-run. But there’s something interesting that comes up in the KRON4 news segment below, in which they speak with Antioch Mayor Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe. Hernandez-Thorpe says that Antioch has a new tool to arrest sideshow drivers after they’ve illegally laid the rubber on the road.
“Guess what? If you come here with this nonsense, you’re going to be held accountable,” Hernandez-Thorpe told the station. “You’re going to regret coming here, because we do have the technology. It’s not just foot-soldiers on the ground that we can send out. We have technology like drones. We capture your license plate, we’re going to show up at your house one day, and we're going to tow your car and then we’re going to fine you.”
The Bay Area News Group elaborated more on Hernandez-Thorpe’s drone plan. That organization notes at this weekend's Antioch sideshows, “the city used drones to capture license plate numbers and will use footage to cite and fine violators and tow and impound vehicles. The process can take up to a few weeks but it will happen.”
The News Group also notes that “Hernandez-Thorpe said that unlike in other cities, police quickly shut the sideshow down and dispersed the crowd – within 40 minutes or so.” (Wait, is 40 minutes considered “quick” to shut down a sideshow?)
In other Antioch sideshow news, the Bay Area News Group adds that the city is now gating off the Antioch Marina parking lot at night with an electric gate. Last August, that parking lot was the scene of a sideshow that resulted in a car landing in the San Joaquin River and a fire hydrant getting knocked over and causing flooding.
Related: Early Spring Weather Brings Illegal Sideshows to San Francisco, Oakland [SFist]
Photo via itsmrinaligoyal/Instagram
