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EDINBURG — Last minute planning and gaping unknowns over security preparations have prompted concerns from city officials about a proposal to host more than a thousand bikers at the Edinburg Motorsports Park next month.
Organizers for the 25th Anniversary Dirty Dave’s Cycle event want to hold the event at the racetrack north of town on Oct. 18-20.
They expect about a thousand people to attend the event over the course of those three days, including tourists and motorcyclists from across Texas and Mexico.
“This is an event for Edinburg, and we are bringing in tourism. We have 400 Winter Texans who have confirmed they will attend. We have the Echo Hotel, the Best Western, the Comfort Inn that have already authorized us to do booking promotions,” event coordinator Laura Garcia said in Spanish to the Edinburg City Council on Tuesday.
Garcia, who also runs the South Texas Motorcycle Museum in Edinburg, said that about a thousand bikers are expected to attend the event, which is being done in honor of her husband and longtime motorcyclist, David Garcia.
David Garcia has operated Dirty Dave’s Cycles, a motorcycle repair shop, in Edinburg for more than 30 years, Laura Garcia said.
She expects riders from as far afield as Temple, Austin and Houston, to come down for the three-day rally, as well as a number of Mexican riders from Monterrey and Guadalajara.
The Mexican bikers are government workers — what she characterized in Spanish as “federal highway officers.” That group will cross into the country in a single caravan at the Reynosa bridge before riding together to Edinburg, Garcia said.
“We are talking about tourists and the biker community, which are more than 66 groups from the Valley. No colors will be allowed during the event,” Laura Garcia said.
If the event is successful this year, she hopes that “double or triple” the amount of people will attend next year..
But she lamented that her organization has been unable to fully promote the event because city officials have yet to give it a greenlight.
“We’re not asking the city for anything, other than that we invite you to come and say hello,” Garcia said as the council held a public hearing over her request to obtain a special use permit for the city-owned racetrack.
The meeting agenda packet shows that Dirty Dave’s first applied for the special use permit just five days before Tuesday’s meeting.
But not asking for anything is precisely what sparked concerns from some city officials, including Place 4 Councilman David White, who once served as Edinburg’s chief of police.
“What is the ‘ask’ for here? Usually on all these, there’s an ask,” White said, referring to the way that organizers of large-scale events typically request city resources, including security.
White pointed to a popular city-sponsored barbecue event the council had approved just moments before turning their attention to the biker event.
As part of the 18th Annual Texas Cook’Em: High Steaks in Edinburg’s request for a special use permit of their own, event organizers requested the city’s help with police and firefighters, as well as the city’s trash and public works departments.
That event, which occurs annually at the Ebony Hills Golf Course along Freddy Gonzalez Drive, is slated to take place the weekend before the biker rally.
Jaime Acevedo, Edinburg’s director of planning and zoning, confirmed the Dirty Dave’s event organizers have made no similar requests for the city’s logistical support — not even for the presence of law enforcement.
As a former cop, White had concerns over the biker event’s security logistics, especially given the Edinburg’s past experience with certain biker gangs.
“I’ll tell y’all right now, I’m against it. … In the chief’s position, I don’t know what he feels about it, but I mean, we’ve had issues here with the Bandidos. … Then we had a big brawl that happened over here … on Schunior,” White said.
White further worried the event could potentially lead to something akin to what happened at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco in 2015.
In that incident, members of the Bandidos and Cossacks, rival biker gangs, engaged in a massive shootout that left nine dead and wounded 18 more.
“There’s a big history of this, guys, and I hope you’re watching. I hope you realize what you’re bringing to Edinburg,” White said.
White called upon current Edinburg Police Chief Jaime Ayala to share his thoughts about the groups who may come down for the rally.
Chief Ayala confirmed that no one from Dirty Dave’s has approached him to talk about what security precautions event organizers are undertaking.
“They’ve not met with me to even talk about the logistics of it. So, I have concerns,” Ayala said.
He further confirmed that organizers have not asked for any police officers to be assigned to the event.
“I have concerns anytime that you’re gonna have a motorcycle rally with thousands that might be in attendance and they’re not even asking for law enforcement presence,” Ayala said
By contrast, he’s already planned to have a dozen officers assigned to patrol the Texas Cook’Em the prior weekend.
Like White, Ayala was also concerned about the lack of “intelligence” regarding the bike rally attendees, and the ability for event organizers — or even police officers — to enforce any “no colors” rules.
The chief said the city does not have enough resources to ensure the event’s safety.
“As Councilmember White mentioned, an event that happened in Waco, anything like that is going to be a significant black eye. I don’t believe that we would have the resources available to manage that many bikers coming through our city, staying at our hotels, visiting our restaurants,” Ayala said.
Ultimately, the concerns that White and Ayala raised were enough to prompt a pause from the rest of the city council, which voted to table the special use permit until city staffers have more time to speak with the event’s organizers.
