San Francisco Aims to Crack Down on Sideshows, Dirt Bikers With Stiffer Penalties

Updated 1 p.m. Friday

San Francisco officials will aim to crack down on sideshows with new criminal penalties and law enforcement strategies, Mayor London Breed announced Friday.

Breed and Supervisor Matt Dorsey, alongside local law enforcement officials, revealed proposed legislation targeting the illegal street car shows and stunt driving that has been a topic of anger and discord among Bay Area residents.

The proposal focuses on cars that take over intersections and “roving groups of dirt bikers” by making it illegal to participate in promoting or assembling for a sideshow, according to a press release.

People whose vehicles block streets for the action and those who impede law enforcement from breaking up the events would face penalties, and the amount of time that the city could hold seized vehicles would be extended beyond 30 days if the district attorney is charging the case.

“We are coming after everything we can, whether it’s your car or your dirt bike,” Breed said during a press conference on Friday morning at San Francisco Police Department headquarters. “We welcome the opportunity for people to ride the streets of San Francisco safely, but when you start crossing those lines, we will take action, and we will be aggressive.”

While sideshows have been a part of Bay Area street culture for decades, the events, which some consider a public annoyance while stuck at intersections or trying to sleep, have escalated to dangerous situations in recent months.

This summer, 14 people were shot and wounded when fights broke out during a raucous sideshow following a Juneteenth celebration in Oakland. And more recently, groups on dirt bikes speeding down streets, blocking intersections and doing stunts have frustrated many in San Francisco. Last week, a video on Reddit began circulating after one group of riders assaulted a man on a scooter at a stoplight on Valencia Street.

The number of sideshows across the Bay Area spiked during the pandemic, and it has remained a fairly common weekend and late-night occurrence to see drivers doing donuts while other cars block intersections and roads. In 2020, SFPD created a unit dedicated to responding to these street takeovers.

“Sideshows are reckless and endanger pedestrians, local businesses, and participants themselves. Too many of these illegal events have led to serious injuries and even fatalities in some cities,” Dorsey said in a statement. “Recent events make it clear we must continue to send a strong message: these activities have no place in San Francisco. Our streets belong to the community, and we will take every measure necessary to ensure the safety of all residents.”

Breed said during the conference that if passed by the Board of Supervisors, the new legislation could be implemented as soon as October or, “at the absolute latest,” November.

That would put the law in effect right as Breed, who is facing mounting accusations from her political opponents that she has not done enough to prevent crime and disarray, goes up for reelection.

Several polls show that public safety is a top issue for San Francisco voters this year. And while neither sideshows nor residents’ frustration over them are new for the city, Breed’s latest announcement follows several other efforts to increase criminal penalties for a variety of issues, such as homelessness.

In March, she also backed two controversial ballot measures that passed, giving police more access to surveillance technology and expanding their ability to carry out car pursuits, along with a measure requiring drug treatment for welfare recipients who have a substance use disorder.

One of those measures, Proposition E, led to a new SFPD drone program that police said this month had already been used to track down and arrest bippers on dirt bikes and disrupt an illegal street gathering and firework display on July 4.

SFPD will use drone and license plate reader technology to track and corral sideshow participants, according to Friday’s release, and the department plans to work regionally with other law enforcement agencies since officials say many of the groups of vehicles putting on the shows are often traveling through multiple jurisdictions.

“We’re going to go after people involved in these sideshows with all of the gusto that we can, and make sure that those [vehicles] that we can identify … are seized, if there’s a criminal conviction with the passage of this legislation, they will be seized permanently,” Police Chief Bill Scott said.

Since January, the SFPD said it had seized 67 vehicles related to sideshows and reckless evasion and documented 15 sideshows. In 2021, there were 72 reported sideshows.

KQED’s Sydney Johnson contributed to this report.