Law enforcement: public safety major roadblock to hosting biker rally

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Though the Hollister Biker Rally isn’t happening in 2025, the city is exploring its feasibility for the future. Among the options discussed at an Oct. 29 meeting were decentralizing the event from downtown, hosting at a time other than Fourth of July weekend, and expanding it to a week rather than three days.

Eight community members who spoke at the meeting supported having the event. About 30 people attended the meeting at the City Hall chambers. 

However, Hollister Police Chief Carlos Reynoso and California Highway Patrol Capt. Noel Coady said the rally poses a major challenge in public safety.

Reynoso said the biggest challenge was having enough law enforcement presence. This is the main reason the City Council has not approved the event in recent years. He said a statewide police shortage made it difficult to hire sufficient staffing even if the rally was held at a different date.

When pressed by Peter Lago, owner of Johnny’s Bar and Grill, on how many law enforcement officers he needed, Reynoso said he could not disclose numbers for reasons of officer safety. He said he could not gather even 10% of the officers he needed.

Previously, Reynoso told BenitoLink that while he could not provide numbers, there was a city code that would require over 200 officers for the rally, which has been estimated to attract more than 10,000 people. 

To supplement law enforcement, community members suggested using private security and technology such as drones.

Lago said he supported the use of private security given his experience working for Kellogg, Brown and Root as a security specialist. He said he hosted 63,000 people at Johnny’s in a span of three days without an incident during a rally year. He said the security staff was proactive and unarmed.

“We just made eye contact with everybody and went ‘I see you looking at that guy across the bar and I’ll buy you a drink if you don’t do what I think you’re thinking about doing,’” Lago said. “And that usually, sometimes was enough and for the most part we avoided incidents.”

Peter Lago said he was hopeful the city could find a solution that fairly addressed safety concerns. Photo by Noe Magaña.

Lago said the demographics of motorcycle riders has changed. He said it is now largely “adventure riders” rather than “hardcore” riders. He also proposed a 5% tax on anything that is sold at the rallies to go toward funding a police training center and addressing staffing shortages. 

Reynoso said hiring private security for the event was not going to solve the problem because they can only observe and report to law enforcement. 

He said another difference is that police officers have guidelines known as Peace Officers Standards and Training or POST, whereas private security standards vary among companies. Reynoso said this brings up a liability issue for the city.

“If the security guard gets heavy handed and acts and there is contact with people, it’s unlawful,” he said. “They could incur liability back towards the event or the city.”

Coady said another challenge for law enforcement is traffic safety, given the condition of infrastructure and population growth in San Benito County. He said in analyzing trends in San Benito County and south Santa Clara County, he found 25% of vehicular homicides and traffic collisions involve motorcycles. 

Motorcycle riders, he said, “are grossly overrepresented in the folks being killed on our highways,” he said.

Coady said that taking into consideration the trend, infrastructure, San Benito County population and law enforcement staffing shortages, inviting motorcycle riders to an event in the area is “inviting problems and death.”

“I live off a very simple slogan that’s served me well in over 26 and a half years in law enforcement—predictable is preventable,” he said. “It is predictable that there will be crashes and these crashes will result in injury and/or death in volume.”

Lago countered by saying it’s well known motorists are more likely to die in an accident if they are on a motorcycle compared to a vehicle. He said it’s a risk motorcyclists are willing to take. 

“These are obvious statistics,” he said. “Are you inviting people to be injured, well that’s a hard case. You have two choices. You can live with absolute security with no freedom or you can live in dangerous freedom.”

Decentralizing operations

Dara Tobais, Bolado Park CEO, presented how the state park in Tres Pinos has provided support to the rally over the years including hosting events. 

“We have a reasonably secured perimeter,” she said, adding that staff can control access to the property.

She noted that the recent San Benito County Fair had 15,000 visitors over three days. 

Several members of the public spoke in favor of spreading the rally to different venues to alleviate overcrowding and safety concerns.

Ashley James, general manager of Brass Tap in Hollister, said she supported using Bolado Park for the rally and tying other county areas to it, such as the wine trail and Paicines.

“Possibly kind of a tour, kind of like a poker run where they stop in numerous places and get that piece of history,” she said. 

The meeting was hosted by the Mayor Mia Casey and Councilmember Tim Burns. A second meeting is planned but no date has been set. The city posted the video of the meeting on its YouTube channel.

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