OCEAN CITY — Although the same special event zone designations were in place and there was a strong police presence, last weekend’s Endless Summer Crusin event paled in comparison to the pop-up rally.
In advance of last weekend’s Endless Summer Cruisin classic car event, the special event zone was implemented throughout Ocean City beginning last Tuesday. The special event zone legislation was enhanced by the Maryland General Assembly last winter to include the offense of exhibition driving and making certain violations arrestable offenses for the first time ever. Ocean City also beefed up its towing ordinance.
A look at some of the statistics from last week shows the classic car Cruisin event paled in comparison to the riotous pop-up car rally weekend. To be sure, there was plenty of noise associated with last weekend’s event and some spectators did line the streets to gawk at their favorite hotrods, but the weekend was considerable tamer than the last time the special event zone was implemented.
Ocean City Police Department (OCPD) Deputy Communications Manager Ashley Miller characterized last weekend as “relatively calm,” and that it “flowed like a normal weekend.” Obviously, it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but the statistics were interesting nonetheless.
For example, during a four-day stretch of the pop-up event from Thursday through Sunday, there were 277 total arrests including 127 on Saturday night alone. By comparison, there were 85 total arrests during the pop-up car rally in 2019. By way of further comparison, there were 36 total custodial arrests during last weekend classic car cruising event from Thursday through Sunday.
During the pop-up car rally late last month, there were 2,800 calls for service over the four-day period. Last week during the classic car cruising event, there were 1,262 calls for service, a number further reduced because routine business checks were included among the statistics.
Perhaps the most glaring difference was in the number of vehicles towed during the events. Armed with an enhanced city towing ordinance, a total of 345 vehicles were towed and impounded during last month’s pop-up car rally. By comparison, a measly 32 vehicles were towed during last weekend’s classic car event, or less than 10% of the total during the pop-up car rally.
