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Biker rally 'uneventful'

David Cole | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 14 years, 3 months AGO
by David Cole
| August 2, 2010 9:00 PM

The Mini-Sturgis motorcycle rally put on by Cruisers Biker Bar & Grill at Stateline saw just one drunk get booted from the event area by local law enforcement.

"It was pretty uneventful for law enforcement," Sgt. Lisa Carrington of the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department said Sunday.

The event took place at Cruisers, located at 6105 W. Seltice Way, and ran from Thursday through Saturday night.

Some bikers who attended are on their way to the real Sturgis Rally in South Dakota, which starts a week from today.

At the sixth annual Mini-Sturgis, bikers camped across Seltice Way from Cruisers in a field. Vendors set up shop behind Cruisers on Ante Road.

Carrington said no arrests associated with the rally were reported.

Post Falls Police Chief Scot Haug said his department didn't receive any calls for service to the event. Prior to the event, Post Falls officials were concerned about the large number of campers expected in a small area.

Haug said it wasn't clear how many people attended the event.

"It does appear to be growing," he said. "This was the biggest year. Obviously, there were thousands of people."

He said the land on the south side of Seltice Way is within Post Falls city limits, and city ordinances conflict with camping at that location.

The sanitary services, such as running water and bathrooms, are not in place to support the major concentration of campers there. There also are some pedestrian concerns for people crossing Seltice Way between the bar and the camping area, Haug said.

Some planning needs to be done before next year's event, he said.

Cruisers' owners, Sheri and Larry Herberholz, feel like the event was a success, except for some minor glitches before the event even started.

"It just went super, super smooth," Sheri Herberholz said Sunday. "For us it was a complete success. My staff did an incredible job."

The three snags were either small or quickly fixed, she said.

Gravel, for street maintenance on Seltice, was laid down days before the event was to start - motorcycles and gravel don't get along well. The gravel was swept up late in the week after Herberholz made some urgent phone calls.

Some street lights were out on Seltice Way that didn't get fixed. Lots of people were crossing Seltice Way during the event, magnifying the need for more lighting.

And there was a problem getting Ante Road, which runs on the back side of Cruisers, shut down to allow vendors to set up. There were 83 vendors.

She wasn't sure if the event drew the expected 10,000 visitors. She said they were still evaluating that.

On a positive note, she said, the event raised a lot of money for the charity organization Bikers Against Child Abuse.

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