Portland Cars and Coffee

+1. I've seen too many videos of people leaving other C&Cs trying to do burnouts, losing traction, swerving and crashing. Bad for everyone's reputation.

 

I just want to say that your cars are always a highlight of cars & coffee for me!

Thanks for bringing them out.

 

Huge turnout today. Three times as many as last summer. Just a few pics.
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I was able to grab a couple more great pictures!
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The rest of today's pictures that I was able to grab.
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I am glad you enjoyed them. Never Again!
Today was a totally different experience. First, when I arrived, driving my Cobra Daytona Coupe, I was delayed in getting off Sequoia Pkwy. due to some guys handing out fliers at the entrance. Upon entering and trying to turn left to go by Starbucks, there was a Sheriff's car parked in my lane, facing the wrong direction. There was no deputy in the car, and I naturally thought there had been some sort of a serious problem. For a Sheriff's car to be parked on private property, blocking access to a business, I would think there should be. I had never seen a Sheriff's car at Cars & Coffee before, and still don't know why he was there, as there was no problem.

I parked in the same spot I have been parking for years, by two dumpsters. The only complaints I have previously received is that the dumpsters are a poor backdrop for photos of my cars. I was being greeted by friends, making new friends, and discussing the history of the Cobra Daytona Coupe, when I was interrupted by "You need to move your car immediately." The guy was incredibly rude. I asked why and was told it was a fire lane. Someone asked him what authority he had and he flashed some sort of a badge hanging on a lanyard around his neck. He threatened to have the Sheriff "give me a ticket on the spot!" I left.

I have been coming to Cars & Coffee for many years, since it was started over at Bridgeport. It has been a great place to meet friends, talk about cars, share information, and I have even loaned-out tools to people. It has been a great event, on private property, and as far as I know there have been NO problems.

I don't know who these guys are, or where they suddenly feel they acquired the authority to hijack the event. As I expressed in my post last week, I am all for insuring safety. What I saw today was certainly counterproductive in that regard.

If I had wanted to be treated rudely, accused, and threatened, bu someone with a home-made name badge, I would have stayed home.

One more thing: I would expect the two dumpsters to be removed by the end of the day..........they are in a Fire Lane!

 

No bets on if the dumpsters getting moved from me.

The people who were wearing the badges and acting official were apparently introduced to us by some post on facebook last week. There is a facebook group "PDX CandC" that has claimed the event as theirs, and has for a while. However that page began long after the event was planned and documented here on FerrariChat.

Being willfully facebook illiterate, I had to ask my wife to look that up for me. The people with the badges call themselves "Ground Control." If you have access to facebook, the dates of the introduction postings were February 23 & 26, 2015--my wife nicely left that page open for me.

 

Here's the text of the announcement about changes.
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Thanks! That is what I read on my wife's facebook after C&C today.

This changes the nature of the event away from the organic gathering of car friendly enthusiasts that it had been, into something far more bureaucratic.

I was put off, quite a bit, driving in there today. Getting to the situation unaware, I did not expect to be stopped and be handed a list of rules for good behavior.

 

Too bad... I'm glad I didn't come out yesterday. I was planning to, and made a last minute change to do something else.

 

Ground Control.

That's funny, Major Tom!

 

Time to move it to friendlier, less congested environs.

 

Sounds like your local C&C is becoming more aligned organizationally with Exotics @ Redmond Town Center (E@RTC) up here in the Seattle area. I've been attending E@RTC for the last three yrs (since I bought my 308) so it is all I know. It is well run by a great group of volunteers who put in a big effort whenever they have the event. They park every car, i.e. direct it to a spot and assist the driver in aligning the car (they don't park within the lines for various reasons). This generally puts cars in common groupings, which may or may not be to your personal tastes. I think it works well IMO. I've never seen a specific police presence as part of the event, and have never seen a need for it.

Only downside is that E@RTC does not happen between late fall and early spring, nor when they feel the probability of inclement weather is too great. This is reasonable given the huge volunteer staff requirement to pull off the event in the manner they do. I have always felt envious when you guys post pics in the middle of winter. I don't know if there are ever any informal gatherings during the off months up here, but the last couple weekends have been perfect. Would be nice to have other options up here where people know to meet (maybe there is and I just need to get informed).

Hope you guys can weather the sea change without distracting from the main purpose of the event.

 

I have to say I envied Portland's c&c - always on every Saturday of the year rain or shine - sometimes with only a couple of cars/trucks in the snow. No one had to wait to find out if was on or off. I was there once last year and it was pretty full. Here in the Seattle area we have Exotics at Redmond Town Center which is a managed event during the spring, summer, and fall on non-rainy Saturday mornings. The property owners even promote it, but it is so large that I doubt the property owners would allow it if not for our friendly "parking thugs" that control it. Unfortunately when things get so large you really do need some sort of control.

We are lucky in both areas to have such a large venue provided freely by the property owners/managers, and I imagine what happened in Portland was the owners/managers saw the growth and wanted some sort of order and control. Our "thugs" are all volunteers and do a great job of managing a large number of cars. I'm glad I have a small bit of Starbucks stock as it looks like they really benefit in both places.

 

LOL, me too. Its always amazed me that the restaurants that adjoin the parking areas utilized by E@RTC are not open for an early brunch on Sat during the season.

 

When this Ca&C event was at Bridgeport Village several years ago it was also challenging to get the restaurants and other food service shops to shift hours. For a long time there was a Gelato shop that was a huge hit with my kids that opened early on our C&C days.

My own personal opinion is that there are zero Starbucks offerings fit human consumption so any other option for food and drink would be superior in that regard!

 

Thinking I will take the wait and see approach. Maybe drive my other car to the Starbucks to get a coffee, and see how I am treated.
Tell them I am not here to look at cars but to just get a coffee ...
Personally I have a problem when people say "they are OUR friends" especially when that group is a Gov't based organization. I pick my friends very carefully and don't need someone telling me who my friends are .... Then having a non-law enforcement individual telling me what they will have the "Sheriff" do to me, if I do not follow their instructions does not set well with me.

 

With the size that it is, I can understand the need to keep things somewhat under control. And I have zero problems with law enforcement being there (as long as they're there as enthusiasts, and not writing front plate tickets and that sort of thing).

But deputizing a squad of people to order everyone around doesn't sound good. I've consistently argued against diluting this event with other competing events, but maybe this one has grown to the point that it's time to diversify.

Wasn't someone doing one in the South Waterfront?

 

Don....one does happen down here in front of the coffee shop under the Meriwether West Tower, however parking is the issue....you can maybe fit 6-8 cars if you park in close.

Maybe we can approach RTGT to hold it at their new building?

 

Excellent idea RTGT does have the room now. Maybe a tech session, I am trying to come up with a reason to renew my annual Ferrari club of America membership. I am not a social butterfly so have not used the membership for anything. Seems like a waste of money at this point, a weekly get together and/or tech session would be nice.

 

The current Northwest Regional Director for the Ferrari Club of America is one of the Co-Managers of the Ground Control group referenced above.

See: Post 509 in this thread: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/143765359-post509.html

and see: NWRFCA Board of Directors

My FCA membership is paid up through summer 2016 so I do not have to evaluate if it worth re-upping just yet.

 

I pulled into a spot and after shutting off the engine a guy came up to me and said to move, unless I was a patient.

Apparently a doctor's office was open that morning.

They could / should have had a sign there.

 

Has anyone spoken to Mark directly about their concerns or the behavior of the "ground control". I know he is very approachable and would want to know if these people were dissuading people from attending the events. I stopped coming regularly awhile ago after one of the burn out incidents.

 

I was the one who asked where they got their authority when they were telling Dr. David to move along. David did an excellent job of describing the attitude. The answer we received about the source of authority was "Mark and Joel who have the authorization of Property Management." He also went to pretty sternly state that if I did not like that, I could leave or be asked to leave.

I continued taking the pictures documenting this ongoing event as I have for years.