Cinco de Mayo weekend is a nightmare if you are a resident of downtown San Jose, an employee of a downtown business, or someone attempting to attend a downtown play, concert, movie or other non-Cinco de Mayo event. However, it’s not because of what you might think. It’s true that there are many people and a lot of noise and traffic, but that happens almost every weekend. The problem is the San Jose Police Department who throw up roadblocks at all downtown freeway exits and many city streets, making it virtually impossible to enter downtown from the outside world.
I first learned about this the hard way my first year in San Jose 9 years ago. Coming home late from visiting friends in the East Bay, I found my way home barred at every freeway exit. I went further afield and traveled back down Coleman from the airport, only to run into another police roadblock at Taylor St. When I tried to stop and speak to the police officers, they gestured wildly and yelled at me to keep moving. I pulled over and an officer approached the car with his hand on his gun holster and demanded I move. I explained I was just trying to get home to San Pedro Square and showed him my driving license, which he inspected while he kept one hand close to his gun. Then he said, oh, OK, and lifted the barrier and told me to pass through. I went through this process three more times in the next few blocks before finally arriving at a completely dead San Pedro Square, having spent more than half an hour trying to get there from the freeway.
Virtually the same thing happened for three more years in a row and finally I gave up and now leave the city from Friday afternoon until Monday morning each year on Cinco de Mayo weekend. I have heard similar stories every year from other flustered residents who spent ages trying to get home, restaurant workers made late to arrive at their place of employment, and patrons who missed the beginning of concerts, plays and movies. I have spoken to the police sergeants in charge of the yearly operation and get the same answer: They must do this to control traffic. They tell me just stop and talk to the police officers and they will let you pass. This is easier said than done, especially since the police officers manning the barricades obviously don’t like making exceptions.
This year, after returning from my peaceful weekend in Sacramento, I heard more stories that indicate things were bad once again. Because of the roadblocks and police traffic control tactics, confused residents drove around in circles for an hour to complete what is usually a 5 minute trip. One even told me he was moving out of downtown because of it. This is a ridiculous state of affairs. It’s wrong to lock down the city and keep residents and citizens from having free passage to and from their homes and events. I resent having to leave town for the weekend just so I don’t have to go through a police gauntlet every time I want to travel out of the area for a while and return home.
Here is a message to Chief Davis, Sgt. Woo and the city council: You need to come up with a better way of dealing with Cinco de Mayo weekend. Laying reverse siege to the city center and keeping law abiding citizens from having free passage is not a solution. How about starting now to come up with a better plan for next year?
Jack: You’re 100% correct on this. The SJPD tactics you describe are overkill. How are those multi-million condos downtown going to sell once the potential residents realize they’re moving into a police state? I’ve complained about this in the past on this blog and people think I’m anti-police. Far from it, it’s just that real police departments can control large crowds without locking down half of the city. NYPD does this all of the time, and they have to deal with real emergencies.
1 – You also don’t have wreckless vandalism at events at Montalvo like we have downtown.
It’s a good thing we’re recruiting more cops so we can make more busy work like this. What a farce.
I should add that this problem just doesn’t affect drivers. It’s impossible to walk downtown during CdeM weekend without being forced out of your way by these ridiculous roadblocks. This needs to stop.
THANK YOU! Finally we are adressing real issues that have a major effect on us Downtowners! NOW that they are being adressed, how about doing something about it! we can’t blame the clubs! or TASTE in San Pedro Square (Tom owns it now) HA! So how about we take back our Downtown from the POLICE STATE we live in. Make your concerns heard to our council member!
Great piece Jack – I feel the same way and am angry all over again just reading what you wrote!! Everyone told me to just show my driver’s license to the police and they will let me go to my home, but that’s impossible to do if you can’t exit a freeway to go home because all of the exits are blocked. Once we managed to find a ridiculous pathway to our house, it took ages just to find a break in the cruising traffic to cross Santa Clara Street. I attempted to go to Muchos for take out on Friday (this is May 2nd for GOODNESS SAKE!) and there was no parking up and down Santa Clara Street from Friday at 6:00 p.m. through Monday morning, how do you imagine the business owners must feel? How about the people trying to get to work? I would love to see some sensible plan for residents of the city, but after seeing this fiasco repeated year after year, I hold out little hope….
I echo the concerns with many of the posters here, particularly Hugh’s. One would think that our “leaders” in San Jose would at least adopt how the NYPD performs crowd control at major events. Especially when some of that same leadership uses the coming of BART (?) to the downtown San Jose area as a “live in Downtown San Jose” selling point.
If efforts to recruit officers from New York City can be made, why not methods of crowd control? Because it would be too effective and beneficial for everyone but troublemakers, particularly during Cinco de Mayo?
It also bears asking if the SJPD has any plans to deal with the rise in gang violence from the thugs (if they can read this) from Oakland or Richmond if BART ever comes here. When the police lock down downtown during Cinco de Mayo like they do now, will BART stations in the downtown area be closed? Will trains have to turn back in Fremont or Milpitas simply to avoid the lockdown of downtown during Cinco de Mayo?
My decision to leave San Jose and the Silicon Valley nearly four years ago looks wiser by the day…
Just wait and see what happens on Mothers Day!!!!
Great piece Jack, but it isn’t only during Cinco De Mayo events. This happens to us on some late weekend evenings, and during the Jazz festival etc. I understand the need for traffic control and I even understand the need for crowd control but this is kind of ridiculous. Last year, we were trying to visit a friend who lives in downtown on Cinco De Mayo weekend. Forget it, we just turned around and went home after an hour of being re-routed over and over again. And you are correct, if you pull over to ask an officer how to get in, they aren’t very polite or helpful.
When TMc had a radio program this problem was a topic. As I recall, there was to be a committee formed to brainstorm. I called in to sign up to be a member of the committee, but to my knowledge it was never taken any further. TMc was not forming the committee, his guest was. At the time, I thought the city could issue residents stickers to show that they reside in the downtown area, I believe Capitola does this.
Jack, you met a sympathetic officer, the one I tried to reason with told me,“If you can point to your house, I’ll let you by.” I too showed my driver’s license to no avail, and had an elderly parent with me in the heat in three lanes of bumper to bumper traffic on 4th Street. I was forced back on 280, and quite frankly, had to really think how I could get back home. This year I hesitated to try to go to church on Sunday. One of my most vivid memories of a previous Cinco de Mayo, was a man holding on to a newly planted tree on 17th Street, vomiting. Great on a Sunday!
Now we’ve managed to create a three day Bay Area event: Tres de Mayo in San Francisco, Quatro de Mayo in San Jose and Cinco de Mayo itself. On Seis de Mayo I found a white plastic grocery bag on my front lawn; when I went to pick that up I realized it had a large empty bottle of beer. The next evening a neighbor told me he shooed away a man that was sleeping on my front lawn. The neighbor did not phone me because he thought it was too late at night, and even if the police had been notified, they probably would have been too busy to respond to a call in a downtown neighborhood. So, the way I see it, the downtown residents are being penialized so that predominately non-downtown residents can revel for days.
Nobody likes the street closures but at the risk of allowing facts to compete with rants there is a very simple reason the police need to close streets when crowds get too large.
When downtown streets become gridlocked emergency vehicles (fire, ambulances, etc.) can’t respond to calls.
Could the street closings be handled better? Probably. Better signs and an ID check area for downtown residents would help.
Can the police be more courteous? Absolutely. (Jack: If cops are rude, or come at you with their hands on their guns, get the badge info and make a complaint. One incident might not bring action, but if a cop is a serial asshole sooner or later the brass will take notice.)
This conflict between public safety and convenience is probably inevitable in a city that holds large events in a downtown where thousands live. But when all is said and done the need to protect life and property trumps somebody’s desire to get to Mucho’s for a sack of tacos.
I agree that roadblocks in downtown are very inconvienent; however, we cannot talk about this without discussing the vandalism that has taken place during and after this, and other downtown events like it, in the past. It has been well documented by the news stations. The Police have the responsibility to keep the public safety, and the vandalism that has taken place historically during this event is something they are duty-bound to prevent.
So if the current system doesn’t work, then does anyone have any other ideas that will both (1) keep the public safe from any vandalism, and (2) not be such an inconvenience with all the roadblocks downtown?
This fiasco (the so-called traffic and crowd control) has been going on for years. It doesn’t just affect downtown residents. I lived in North San Jose. I was coming home on 87. I normally exit on Taylor Street and go out to King. Every exit on 87 was blocked so I had to go all the way to 101 N, exit on 101 and return on 101 S before I could finally get home. This is no way to run a city. I informed my Councilmember at the time (gee, it was Chuck Reed) who agreed this was not handled well and would work to improve the situation. Apparently the situation is as bad as ever.If we can’t have events downtown without shutting down the city then we need to stop the events. Shouldn’t have to be that way but San Jose just doesn’t seem to know how to grow up and conduct itself like a big city.
Thanks everyone for your own stories, experiences and ideas. It should be evident to City Hall that this is a real problem that they urgently need to deal with differently that they have done. I don’t know what the answer is, but to keep turning downtown San Jose into an imitation of Belfast in the 1980s certainly isn’t a solution.
#12 Kathleen
You are right. There are roadblocks on other days during other events. The problem is the same. Residents are not informed in advance and there is no provision for us to easily get through the roadblocks. I wonder what they were thinking at City Hall when they approved such utterly stupid tactics.
#13 Wonder Woman
Your experience takes the prize. It’s unbelievable that you should have to go through something like that with an elderly relative in the car and an ID showing your address. Shame on that officer and the policy that allowed him to make such an idiotic decision. It sounds more like the Gestapo.
#14 MC
If this is a public safety issue, then it should be the events themselves that come under scrutiny, not law abiding citizens going about their daily business.
As Greg Howe says in #2, why not hold the Cinco de Mayo event at the County Fairgrounds? There is no reason for it to be downtown, and the fairgrounds are just sitting there going to waste practically the whole year. Ask any business downtown and they’ll tell you that they lose a huge portion of their usual income on Cinco de Mayo weekends because customers can’t get to them or they stay away.
Keep your posts coming on this issue because I know for a fact that they are reading this down at City Hall.
Holding this event and others at the fair grounds is an excellent idea! I also think that the Beryessa Flea Market should be moved there too. The County complains about needing revenue and the vendors are just trying to feed their families well….
MC writes: “Nobody likes the street closures but at the risk of allowing facts to compete with rants there is a very simple reason the police need to close streets when crowds get too large.”
This is horse hockey, as far as San Jose is concerned. Downtown CdeM crowds are not impressive by New York standards. I keep bringing up NY because I lived in Manhattan for 20 years and have seen large crowds. Hell, every day in Midtown sees more crowding than any weekend in downtown SJ. Yet somehow, for the most part, NYPD manages to keep the peace without locking down whole neighborhoods. In NY, St. Patrick’s Day is a big deal, like CdeM is here. There is a large police presence that day, but they don’t try to shut down the City.
The obvious exception was after 9/11, when parts of lower Manhattan were closed off.
Jack writes, “If this is a public safety issue, then it should be the events themselves that come under scrutiny, not law abiding citizens going about their daily business.” I say “amen” to this and request that anyone at City Hall actually reading this needs to instruct SJPD to change their tactics. Again, it’s not just drivers who are inconvenienced; law-abiding pedestrians are forced blocks out of their way by the cops as well.
We don’t see this many roadblocks when the president is in town!
I also think that the Beryessa Flea Market should be moved there too.
Let the Bumbs buy the Fairgrounds if the Flea Market is so essential. It is not the responsibility of Santa Clara county taxpayers to provide land for a flea market.
Good points all. One perspective that is missing, however, is that when you live downtown you are buying into a more energetic, lively place than say the suburbs.
I am not saying what happens on CdeM or other events (I stay away from the Arena/downtown area on Sharks night…and yeah Cops can be curt/rude…ever wonder how they got that way or whether they ever hear a false story) is ok. But when I lived near downtown, we had ongoing visits by all sorts of folks and the litter is much worse than in the suburbs. Than again, it also had its interesting, lively side too.
Sounds like the traffic police haven’t thought enough about this problem; so when they do try something new and it doesn’t work out the first time, lets remember not to jump all over them for taking a risk.
#21- I couldn’t care less about the Bumbs, it is the poor soon to be ejected vendors selling goods I care about, along with keeping the historic flea market alive in San Jose.
HELLO EVERYONE! They already do a cinco de mayo event at the fairgrounds! There are 2 events, 1 at discovery park (FREE), 2 the fairgrounds(COVER CHARGE). Maybe they should move it entirely to the Fairgrounds.
How about that for an idea?
Alum Rock Park might be a good place too to hold Cinco De Mayo. It is beautiful there! There’s lots of space, seating, and parking. The enterance and exists are easy to control too.
What’s the suprise with SJPD? They can’t have too many brown and young folks be able to enjoy themselves <sarcasm>. That would be a crime of major proporations in San Jose. You don’t see check points and barricades in front of Villa Montalvo in Saratoga do you?
Jack,
Sounds like a real problem… why not hold the event at the fairgrounds or the Heritage Plaza?
Great Post. And very true.
This is also hugely unfair to small businesses.
Cinco weekend causes a number of us to loose 50 to 80% of our sales for the week. Which means we bounce rent and payroll checks.
All so the police and city staff can show our big they are and cash in a lot of OT.
It is a sham and a Shame they get away with this. The overall aproach to Cinco de Mayo by the Police, City Staff, City Council and mayor is at best COWARDLY!!!!
Perhaps they are trying to prevent incidents like the one where a drunk Cinco de Mayo celebrant rammed into my bosses’ car on 5th and Julian. My boss was basically a vegetable after that. Shut down the streets to prevent another accident like that…I’m all for it.
DG in WG: “One perspective that is missing, however, is that when you live downtown you are buying into a more energetic, lively place than say the suburbs.”
Again, some cities manage large crowds without resorting to the heavy-handed tactics. Fact: The city’s trying to encourage people to move downtown. Not letting law-abiding residents access to their homes on CdeM isn’t the way to do this.
DG in WG again: “Sounds like the traffic police haven’t thought enough about this problem; so when they do try something new and it doesn’t work out the first time, lets remember not to jump all over them for taking a risk.”
Fine, the first time. The point of Jack’s post, however, is that this is an ongoing problem and SJPD is not interested in alternative strategies. According to Jack, it’s been going on for a decade now. Again, how is the city going to attract people downtown if the cops overreact every time there is a “major” celebration scheduled?
YYY: “I don’t like the traffic controls either, but what are the options?”
You need to keep order without stomping on the residents who are just trying to go home. Hire someone from a big city PD to show you how.
I work downtown and sometimes I have to go in to work on the weekends or at night. I know enough to keep away from downtown around Cinco de Mayo, but sometimes there are events happening that I haven’t heard about.
I’ll come out from work, ready to go home (which normally takes me about 20 minutes) and all of a sudden I find myself stuck in gridlock from which there is no escape. They make it impossible to turn around and choose an alternate route. All traffic is funnelled into a single freeway onramp—not where I want to go in the first place—and it can take more than an hour to go four or five blocks. Once you get into it you are trapped, there is no way out.
Surely this can’t be the best way to deal with these situations.
jack…nice commentary…i rented a condo in downtown for more than a year to see if it was somehting we wanted to do for life. well, two new year’s eves ago, my son encountered the san jose’s finest road blocks when he and his girlfriend tried to return to our condo a little after midnight. he had to pull over and sleep in the car until 3am because the police wouldn’t let him through to come home to our condo. we live in the rose garden now and i never contribute to police funds. the police are not resident friendly.
—anonymous for fear of harrassment from the police.
The accounts of the DT residents posted above re: trying to get home make me absolutely furious, yet I am not suprised to see leadership shooting themselves in the foot again (geez, the feet have long since been blown off, really) trying to get people DT on the one hand, and then preventing those who have chosen to pioneer DT living from even getting to their homes.
Police operate on the principle that EVERYBODY is presumed guilty or otherwise suspect. This practice is exactly why even showing your goddamn driver’s license won’t even fly with them. MC #14, I think you are dreaming. If anything, the asshole cops get commendations rather than condemnation from the top brass.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, 99% of cops, male or female, are in the job to push people around due to their own unresolved insecurities. Until this sort of personality disorder can be weeded out in the recruiting process (and don’t tell me there isn’t a way to do that) we will continue to have jerk cops threatening people who have a right to get to their own property.
Bingo.
If any of the investors or developers of Axis, City Heights, or Keystone are reading this, THIS is the primary reason I couldn’t bring myself to buy downtown. Cinco de Mayo and Mardi Gras.
There are no easy answers to this problem. I don’t like the traffic controls either, but what are the options? Five years ago it was chaos on Santa Clara Street – vandalism, violence, noise, and crowds spilling into neighborhoods. We had to have police officers on motorcycles literally protecting my home near Santa Clara Street until well into the morning hours five years ago. It was dangerous and scary. This year was like night and day compared to that time, so my conclusion is that the police tactics are effective with respect to the highest priority concern of maintaining order and safety. Could there be improvements with respect to traffic control and access for residents, perhaps, but I would not support a change that would slide us back to where we were five years ago.
How about a 3rd option? Don’t declare people guity until proven innocent. [or in this case, don’t treat everyone as guilty, period.] Increase police presence downtown on CdeM but instead of having all of them on roadblock duty have them actually patrolling the streets and detering the trouble. And if someone steps out of line, arrest them. There is no excuse for forbidding taxpayers from going home, esp in a neighborhood that’s trying to attract residents.
Jack,
In #17 you write “If this is a public safety issue, then it should be the events themselves that come under scrutiny, not law abiding citizens going about their daily business.” I completely agree with you on this. Unfortunately, it is impossible for our city leaders to use objective facts and the destruction caused by past Cinco events, without being labeled racist. The police are left in a no win situation. They can allow troublemakers downtown who destroy our property and injure people, and then the police are told the didn’t do their job. The other option is to close downtown to everyone, preventing damage to people and property, and pissing off all the hard working residents of the area. If we could stop trying not to offend anyone and being so politically correct, maybe some logical solution could be found, and the police department would not be the scapegoats for the trouble makers.
Last night was like a lock down in some 3rd world country. There were check points at White and Story, Capital, Tully, and perhaps other locations on the East Side.
The resturant I went to was in a frantic state. Waiting for my take out, I listened to the employee, she was calling her friends and relatives about the sad state of affairs. She was so afraid , that she was going to take a bus home. FEAR. LOTS OF FEAR!
My thought was that the attack on this community should start at city hall, not in the neighborhoods. This remainded me of an abusive Father that will not admit his failures and wishes to punish his children for his failures.
One can imagine what an 8 year old is asking his Mom on the way to Safeway after being stopped at a check point in our community. Why are they treating us like that? Because they think they can get away with it, and they don’t know what to do about solving their problems
That signals a very bad sign that not all is well at the Tajgonzal. Do Mexicans really party for two weekend after the Cinco de Mayo?
I think not.
So why all of the control. What is the message? Nora Compos should have all of the answers, but why have we not heard from her.
Is the check points the answer to the mayor’s delema.
One can look at this two ways. Establish a rolling lock down thru out the city north east west and south. What will be gotten from this. Drunks going home after having drinks at a downtown night club, sharks game, HP Pavilion concert? We have made night life a priority in our down town.
We attract folks from all over the bay area. One but has to figure out the alcohol consumtion of the down town on any given week end. We haven’t even started to talk of the drugs being sold and used in the down town core.
The obious, is to hold the sellers of alcohol responcible for the amounts of alcohol sold to the individule.
Who will throw the first stone.
The answer is in the Stone. It comes from a heavy hand that is out of synic with the real lessons that plague our community and the country. Frustations, fear, and anxiety rule our lives.
It will end only when we come together as a community and stop the finger pointing.
D.O.A.
Jack,
A couple of points I wanted to make on your column. I noticed that other cities have special permits for residents to put on their cars so that during festivals there is no hassle about allowing people through blocked streets. That might be something the city of San Jose does. By displaying a permit there would be no need for the Police to have to stop you, or for you to stop to prove to them that you live there.
Secondly, after thinking about it, observing the way the City, and Police in Campbell handle the festival in DT Campbell this weekend, and participating in a discussion on SJI written by Raj, I have come to the conclusion that moving Cinco de Mayo to another place will not stop the trouble makers from causing problems at the festival, nor will these folks stay out of downtown. I don’t know what the answer is to stop or reduce the problems caused by this festival, but I do think our leaders should speak with Mayor Newsom, and the Mayor of New York to come up with something! And perhaps some type of public out reach and education on the importance of public safety needs to be happening as well.