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Wisconsin City passes anti cruising ordinance

XS22J8R

XS22J8R

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Reading this takes me back 40+ years to my youth. Though not anything that we did in my hometown or any nearby that I knew of, I'd read of nighttime cruising activities in car magazines then and wish they were closer so I could participate. Car Craft even had a feature for a year or two in the early 80s called "Cruising USA" where they'd travel to various cities and write an article about the city's car related nightlife. The degree the area police would crack down on the cruising was discussed in the articles.
By the 90s things seemed to really have reversed 180° with authority's view of cruising, as various towns and organizations began sponsoring and encouraging cruise nights. Though the participants tend to be older and mostly sit in lawn chairs by their cars, rather than any drinking and organizing races types the crack downs of cruises in the 70s and 80s targeted.
So I feel like I'm having a flashback to 80s reading this news!
https://www.wearegreenbay.com/news/...ing-ordinances-authority-to-impound-vehicles/
I know there is a lot of problems in recent times with miscreants taking over intersections and parking lots for drifting "sideshows", but this ordinance doesn't mention that being the issue there. Back in the day I don't think us car crazy kids could ever imagine getting into doing that idiocy, and truth be told, back then before cell phones with cameras, and social justice naval gazing, I think if kids had tried taking over intersections to cause mayhem, the problem would have been nipped in the bud by cops dragging them out of our cars and beating them to a pulp with their nightsticks!
 
Just like in the old days, you just move somewhere else that appreciates the business it brings.
 
What's happened to Wisconsin ? (I know but it's the GD forum)
used to be a great part of Northern 'America', good people, good morals,
like America in a nutshell, not what it's become of late, since like Nov. 2008
gone down hill...
sad ****;
To let a few bad apples (punish them not the rest) ruined it for
'everything, for everyone else'

& all them posting the **** on TikTok on their cell phones
 
Last edited:
When I was a youngster they'd shut down cruises too
from like 1976-86 I quit going did more out of the area stuff, cruise or race related
Main Steet & locust in Walnut Creek Ca. (in Contra Costa East Bay Area)
was a huge deal
thousands of people, some parked some cruising some trouble but wasn't the norm
& cool cars every Friday & Saturday night
went on for well over a decade, prior to my era too,
most all the businesses loved it, many stayed open late too
the fast food joints & theaters made serious coin
the city counsel hated US & it
(the Lowriders & gangs ruined it after a while, coming over from Oakland/SF)
std operation WCPD usually shut it down like 1: to 2: am-Ish,
we'd leave & go to a parking lot somewhere with the owners permission,
a big group of muscle car street cars, like resto-mods/pro-street today
go over in Concord, a few miles to neighboring town...
A Safeway parking lot, Encino Grande Shopping Center,
corner of Willow Pass & Corcord Ave.
as long as we sort of cleaned up after,
(Owner) he put trash cans & porta potties out to help us
many times, we'd invite people from out of town, to set up street races/drag races
(wasn't the smartest stuff, cops knew it was happening)
but it was way better than;
US all being drunk or on drugs or thieves, scumbags looters, vandals
or any scumbags tearing **** up, like today...
 
Grew up in a small town 25-minutes from Milwaukee. Being as old as I am, remember when we cruised the main street most every night. Lots of guys had nice rides. We had two outdoor theaters, couple of drive-in’s where you could drive under the canopy and have a car hop wait on you. We didn’t have to drive far to remote highways to race. We had some parking lots on each end of town where we would socialize. Back then most stores closed by 9 or 10PM.

Then things started changing slowly with the pace of change accelerating (pun here, but accurate). The drive-in’s shut down leaving a Mac’s; but they got rental police kicking us out if parked more than 15-minutes. The movie theaters closed and were leveled. Then it seemed like a population explosion in a short span, the main streets were often jammed with traffic. A cruising ban was enacted, no more than two-times an hour through town. It was a joke since with traffic, that’s about how often one could make it anyway. Some of those remote highways were being surrounded by new subdivisions.

Timing wasn’t bad for me, getting older, my aimless cruising fun was about done going back to school, working, and moving into my own place after getting engaged.

We didn’t trash things, litter, block streets, or traffic. Just read a story about a major intersection in Milwaukee being blocked by dipshits doing idiotic stunts that could kill a bunch of standing gawkers if something went bad. This **** makes my blood boil.
 
Budnicks said:
When I was a youngster they'd shut down cruises too
from like 1976-86 I quit going did more out of the area stuff, cruise or race related
Main Steet & locust in Walnut Creek Ca. (in Contra Costa East Bay Area)
was a huge deal
thousands of people, some parked some cruising some trouble but wasn't the norm
& cool cars every Friday & Saturday night
went on for well over a decade, prior to my era too,
most all the businesses loved it, many stayed open late too
the fast food joints & theaters made serious coin
the city counsel hated US & it
(the Lowriders & gangs ruined it after a while, coming over from Oakland/SF)
std operation WCPD usually shut it down like 1: to 2: am-Ish,
we'd leave & go to a parking lot somewhere with the owners permission,
a big group of muscle car street cars, like resto-mods/pro-street today
go over in Concord, a few miles to neighboring town...
A Safeway parking lot, Encino Grande Shopping Center,
corner of Willow Pass & Corcord Ave.
as long as we sort of cleaned up after,
(Owner) he put trash cans & porta potties out to help us
many times, we'd invite people from out of town, to set up street races/drag races
(wasn't the smartest stuff, cops knew it was happening)
but it was way better than;
US all being drunk or on drugs or thieves, scumbags looters, vandals
or any scumbags tearing **** up, like today...
Click to expand...
I used to cruise Redding back in the day, early 80s. Of course that got shut down too.
 
Sometimes Shirley and I, would go down to the water front, get a table overlooking the street, and a beer, and watch the cars go by. Many rods of different types. Speed limit is 25, so the radical cam cars are pretty much idling. We would send a message to a friend in Edmonton AB, and tell them we were in the pub, in the sun, watching the cars go by.
They would reply, they too were in the pub, on a main street, watching it snow.
 
50 years ago the city of West Allis, banned crusing on Hwy 100 after drug sales, drag racing and inappropriate behavior ruined it
 
"Cruising Bans" are patently unconstitutional and blatantly illegal. Period. The SOBs get away with it mostly because most of the 'cruisers' are young[er] folks who don't have the wallet to fight it in court. Rather than actually focus on the problems and the 'people' causing the issues, like usual, the general non problem causing population has their rights trampled and more draconian measures enacted by local governments. And the impoundment - and occasional destruction - of vehicles?!?!!?! Beyond illegal and completely reprehensible.
I'll stop so as to not get this deleted, but might suggest that people suffering under such consider dumping their tea...
 
When I spent the summer of '83 in the Santa Clara/San Jose area of northern California, they were cracking down on cruising there. We would cruise El Camino Real, but we had to be creative about where we would stop to shoot the ****. I think they had a loitering ordinance or something to put a damper on cruising. They had a copper sitting at just about every intersection on Friday and Saturday nights.

In my hometown in WI back then, we would "cruise the gut", which was the 3 mile stretch of Main St between the park and the drive-in. Fun days and a time lost to history when we were all driving what would become (years later) high dollar collectible muscle cars. At the time, they were our daily drivers.
 
I think just recently they overturned the cruising ban that was in effect over here. I’m glad they did but I haven’t checked it out, feel like I aged out of it.
 
Krooser said:
50 years ago the city of West Allis, banned crusing on Hwy 100 after drug sales, drag racing and inappropriate behavior ruined it
Click to expand...
Was it that long ago? Time flies. Old work buddy seriously messed up his leg totaling his new 396 Chevelle on that stretch one night hitting a light pole as I recollect. That was pretty early, around 1969. Life-long misery from that injury having a lot of hardware store material installed in his leg. Anyway, I remember stories later on about littering, pissing in parking lots, and making big noise late at night or early morning, pissing off area residents.
 
Sacramento, J Street loop was a big cruise,
up till a few years ago, I haven't heard of late

Yreka, not sure the name of the road now, right thru town
it was the rd from the main offramp I-5 north
when my bros./sisters & parents dad & stepmother) moved up there,
my brother had a nice 73 RS/SS Camaro with a hot SB, it was fun

Used to go to Modesto a lot, it got shut down pretty much early, a few times
& it'd come back, for Graffiti days etc.

Cupertino, El Camino Real, was a hoot
anything on El Camino Real was pretty good, went a long ways thru the south bay
started at East 14th (is El Camino Real) in Pinole IIRC, each town had a lil' cruise

El Cerrito, East 14th when I go visit my cousin, Stan
he had a fast 68 Firebird Ram Air, it couldn't beat my 68 Charger R/T though
we'd get to racing, or jus showing off & the ECPD would tell us
take it somewhere else
they knew Stan really well...

Fairfield was hot for a time too, got busted their for too loud exhaust
& I had to bail out my buddy after racing on Ball Cannery rd.

Antioch, L Street had a nice lil' cruise too,
then go out to race by the drive-in theater,
all the APD knew me they all lived on my street Hacienda Way
I bought my 1st Charger R/T from the ex-wife of the former Co. Sherrif, Guy
a couple house across & down, the Sheriffs Dept. CHP & APD
all knew my car very well

Pittsburg, 10th street was a longer cruise, after they shut it down like 11pm
the brotherhood were very cool & into MoPars bigtime
we went past the PG&E power plant on 10th, did some serious street races
some serious nasty wrecks there too, it didn't last long

Livermore had a cool lil' cruise back in the 70's & 80's

Danville, Diablo Rd (IIRC) had a lil' cruise too, it always got shut down early,
the rich folks complained about loud cars & loud music

Concord, Clayton Rd, they had a bigger longer cruise, at one time
later Concord Ave, or Willow Pass when the others got shut down,
we had like 4 places
it was taken over by the lowriders, we all went to Walnut Creek
or any of the others above
 
Last edited:
Used to be a huge cruising contingency down main streets all over the country, I still miss that. I can drive 45 minutes away and still cruise Woodward on Friday and Saturday, but I seldom do. We used to have a 26 mile cruise here in my hometown they coincided with the local car show. About 900 cars, went through Hell and out to the airport where they had a band and ice cream stand and food vendors, then through the towns along the way back to Pinckney where they had a huge sock hop. One year they had bleachers set up down town, and all the local racers brought out their race cars and did burnouts and hard launches, that was a lot of fun.

Fun story….Nella wanted to take her car through the cruise, so she loaded up her car with all her friends and asked one of the moms to drive. 1/2 way through the cruise at the airport them Mom asked me why all the cars were stopping and spinning their tires. I told her it was called a burnout and told her how to do one. She proceeded to stop at every puddle of water, everywhere there were people out by the road, and basically anybody that would cheer her on. When we got up town she said “boy those burnouts are fun”, and I knew then that I had created a monster!
 
I cruised Lansdale and Pottstown Pa. back in the late 80’s-early 90’s. Car Craft covered the scene in ‘84.

IMG_5254.jpeg
 
Generally speaking, cruisers are their own worst enemy. Cold Steel Cruisers started up a Saturday night cruise during Covid and it didn’t take long for the locals to start complaining. Heavy traffic, loud cars and irresponsible drivers were largely responsible for the complaints, but drunks, littering and public urination were also hot button topics at city council meetings. They didn’t outright ban cruising, but strongly discouraged it with increased police presence and strict parking enforcement (at local taxpayers expense).

The same cycle has repeated itself in popular cruise sites around town, I remember it happening as far back as the 1960’s. The Sun Drive In and Porky’s are long gone, so is the local A&W. There are car shows and cruise-ins but not much actual cruising anymore…
 
Budnicks said:
When I was a youngster they'd shut down cruises too
from like 1976-86 I quit going did more out of the area stuff, cruise or race related
Main Steet & locust in Walnut Creek Ca. (in Contra Costa East Bay Area)
was a huge deal
thousands of people, some parked some cruising some trouble but wasn't the norm
& cool cars every Friday & Saturday night
went on for well over a decade, prior to my era too,
most all the businesses loved it, many stayed open late too
the fast food joints & theaters made serious coin
the city counsel hated US & it
(the Lowriders & gangs ruined it after a while, coming over from Oakland/SF)
std operation WCPD usually shut it down like 1: to 2: am-Ish,
we'd leave & go to a parking lot somewhere with the owners permission,
a big group of muscle car street cars, like resto-mods/pro-street today
go over in Concord, a few miles to neighboring town...
A Safeway parking lot, Encino Grande Shopping Center,
corner of Willow Pass & Corcord Ave.
as long as we sort of cleaned up after,
(Owner) he put trash cans & porta potties out to help us
many times, we'd invite people from out of town, to set up street races/drag races
(wasn't the smartest stuff, cops knew it was happening)
but it was way better than;
US all being drunk or on drugs or thieves, scumbags looters, vandals
or any scumbags tearing **** up, like today...
Click to expand...
I lived in Vallejo back in the day, early 70s. City of Walnut Creek started opening up the fire hydrants to discourage cruising. I went in the Army in 73 and I heard the city was sued over passing on the cost of the water on the businesses.
 
dart4forte said:
I lived in Vallejo back in the day, early 70s. City of Walnut Creek started opening up the fire hydrants to discourage cruising. I went in the Army in 73 and I heard the city was sued over passing on the cost of the water on the businesses.
Click to expand...
Never heard that or seen that, I started cruising there in like 1975
I don't doubt it either...

Now WC is a totally different place, much like Concord is/did,
went WOKE, with way overreach in LEO when it came to cruising
 
Last edited:
Steve Lehto just did a video on this story. He even mentions cruising Woodward in his 69 Charger
 
Who’s cruising today anyway? It really died off in the early 00’s with millennials. Less cruising, less hanging at the mall, less socializing. They had the internet. When I was a teen, all we had was going out to interact with others. Anyway… I’m happy to have been a part of the scene in these cars.
IMG_6028.jpeg
 
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