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aramova t1_j2lger9 wrote

Police just kicked them out of the Target parking lot according to radio chatter. Number of loud showboaters also reported in Hoboken an hour ago.

Likely some social media organized event for guys who want their cars to sound like bikes.

Best way to keep up with these events is getting into the RTLSDR scene. Feed a scan into Google speech to text for transcription and search for anything mentioned in unencrypted government radio chatter.

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JeromePowellAdmirer t1_j2lruvd wrote

Police need to declare these things unlawful gatherings (they literally are breaking the law in multiple ways). That would open up the options on how to get rid of them, instead of just kicking them out, in which case they're obviously going to go somewhere else.

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gearheadsub92 t1_j2lw3r7 wrote

According to r/sanjose, police elsewhere have done just this. I’m pretty confident I saw a post in the last four months that talked about something like 800 arrests made for taking part in an “unlawful road show” - I just wish it weren’t such a laughable idea for JCPD to process 800 arrests in a single night 😂😭

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scubastefon t1_j2mfdr2 wrote

The issue here is straight up logistics. This town doesn’t have enough tow trucks to get rid of one car from a driveway without hours of notice. There’s no way they can manage dealing with dozens of cars in a parking lot. And the owner of the parking lot wouldn’t be alright with a bunch of booted cars on their property. I bet JC doesn’t even own enough boots to handle it.

In general, this town has what it needs to deal with what happens 95% of the time. That’s why we’re all annoyed by 5% of the things that happen.

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j2n2pmp wrote

That’s not really an issue. They invite private tow trucks to do the work, then either the owners pay for it when picking it up, or it’s recouped with interest when auctioned.

That’s how it works everywhere else.

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scubastefon t1_j2nb7uy wrote

I don’t think there’s enough private for a surge op like this what I was getting at.

Also a little off topic, but I’m curious if someone ever told Paramount that there is a company called Top Gun Towing who is trading off one of their brands. I mean someone must have been super pissed about getting towed and then taken it to that extreme, right?

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j2nctbp wrote

There’s a lot of private towing out there. A lot. It’s sometimes predatory.

I think Top Gun as a trademark would only matter if there’s confusion. A movie and a towing company are pretty far apart. Not to mention Top Gun is at least partially a real thing.

So at least as I understand it, they wouldn’t have a claim unless they could prove some kind of confusion…. Reusing character images maybe.

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scubastefon t1_j2o56it wrote

Well they reuse the wings, in conjunction with the name, so I’d say that could at least imply an endorsement. But IANAL.

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j2o5ik4 wrote

I guess the argument is if they’re the movies wings or military which the movie also reused.

At least that’s how I interpret the law.

There’s a “big apple ____” for pretty much anything too. Seems to work under the same pretense.

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markbass69420 t1_j2nc0ll wrote

The podcast The War on Cars did a couple episodes of actual investigative journalism about one of these kinds of scenes in Brooklyn. The cops showed up to break up one of the gatherings, everyone slowly drove away, and when the host asked the cops why they aren't ticketing or arresting or anything, they said it's because they're not actually doing anything dangerous or illegal. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad tbh.

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