“American Heat” biker weekend is cancelled

The Palm Springs City Council is officially cancelling the annual “American Heat Biker Weekend.” The City Council briefly discussed the event during Wednesday night’s meeting before deciding to pull support.

KESQ was the first to report that a member of the Palm Springs Resorts Board had recommended cancelling the event because of the deadly biker gang violence in Texas.

But, some valley business owners are disappointed, saying American Heat is their busiest weekend, and it would mean a loss of thousands of dollars.

The Palm Springs Resorts Board cited safety concerns after the recent violence in Waco, Texas, where gunfire between rival biker gangs outside of a Twin Peaks restaurant left 9 dead.

“Our law enforcement department notified us that they have some intelligence and it would be prudent on our part to go ahead and skip this event for this year,” said the group’s spokesperson.

American Heat was canceled once before after violence erupted between rival biker gangs in 2002.

Palm Spring City Manager David Ready said a meeting was held on Monday to discuss recent violence at biker events and to talk about the extra measures, if any, Palm Springs police would need to take for this year’s event and at what cost.

“With the police department and other jurisdictions help that weekend, there is a cost to that, and it could be up to a $100,000 additional cost either to the city or to Palm Springs Resorts or to the promoter to have the kinds of additional security. Given that the promoter couldn’t come up with the additional funds we decided to take this year off,” said Ready.

Local business owners say American Heat is one of their busiest weekends and canceling the event would mean losing out on thousands of dollars.

“We do about $10,000 a day for a little bar this size that’s great, losing that event is going to be huge for us and every other bar and restaurant downtown too,” said Greg LaRiviere, owner of Palm Canyon Roadhouse.

“It’s going to put a big hole in my income for the year and I am going to have to counter that with some kind of event or something,” said Larry Bitonti, owner of Hair of the Dog.

The Palm Springs City Council was set to decide whether to give over $26,000 in funding for the event at Wednesday night’s city council meeting, but that decision hinged on whether the event came to fruition this year.

The event was slated to take place on October 23-25.

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