Over the past year, there have been posts made about bikers getting ticketed in Old Town Temecula for ticky tacky stuff, mostly related to loud pipes.

Within the past week, a couple of business owners there, Swing Inn Cafe and Slap'n Leather, have initiated efforts to get police to stop harrassing bikers.

Long story short, the city's Chief of Police has promised them that they'll stop the harrassment. I actually talked to the Chief of Police myself on this, since I live relatively close to Temecula. He admitted to me that his officers did indeed go overboard on this, and were going against his original instructions, which was just to ticket those who were going way out of their way to be noisy and obnoxious. He told me that he gave new instructions to his officers to use "more discretion" before pulling over a motorcyclist.

Anyways, those two business owners are now trying to get the word out that "bikers are welcome" in Old Town.

I wrote a rather long and lengthy article about this on my news blog...

http://www.bikernewsonline.com/2008/...-on-bikers.htm

I explained the history of how the ticketing madness got started, and how they're now trying to repair the city's reputation.

 

That's good to hear. I like riding to Old Town Temecula.

 

Thats great! Good to know that there are some reasonable people still in charge. I agree ticketing bikers who are obnoxious with the throttle. I don't agree with ticketing bikers who might have loud pipes, but are just minding their business and bringing business to the local communities.

Now maybe, Huntington, Laguna, and Long Beach can follow suit.

 

ive never had a problem with cops there. matter a fact everytime ive gone to old town ive never seen any cops....

 

The place is always crawlin' with 'em when I've been there

 

Good ole old Town, get that place back in order before I come back to California will you....

Eric

 

Stelis I think it is much better now, have lived in Redhawk for 17 years and frequently ride through old town over the weekend either coming and or going from a ride. I think a big part of the problem was when Temecula Choppers was in business. It wasn't them per se...it was the Idiots that would ride there. Now for the most part those bikes had a pretty hefty price tag so most the buyers were middle-upper middle folks that can afford those bikes. It was the wood winkle wannabee's that would ride up thinking their bike was a Bourget Python when in reality it was a tremendous P.O.S!!! IMHO it was a bunch of those guys that led to tickets.

 

Well I hate to let you guys know, but they're back at it.
Last saturday Oct 25th we were on a ride to Julian and stopped at the Shell at the south end of Old Town and on the corner was a motor Officer who in the time it took to fuel three bike must have writen 5 tickets, all to bikes.
He let the custom cars with the exhaust mods go by, but every bike got a ticket.
And to think Quaid Harley of Temecula is less than 1 block past were the Officer was.
I ride a totally stock 2009 Ultra and we decided a visit was not worth the risk.
So all the businesses and especiall Quaid are losing a lot of business.

 

Was he giving tickets to all or just those Adam Henry's that like to make noise (blip throttle)?

I haven't been to Temeculas in about 2 months but I've never had any problems because I don't have loud pipes (I respect my neighbors at 5 AM when I go to work). Yes, I blip the throttle but only after I've been idleing for a while at a light to clear the carb (old habit).