Well if they do I think the hotel and restaurant associations should buck-up

They also plan to charge you for coming to the seen of an auto accident.

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''Sweeney - you can both crush your AG *and* cruise in dead last!! 😂 '' Murphy's Law

Being a former Chief of Police and having triathlons in my jurisdiction as well as some Pro Cycling Races come through our location, I can see why the dept would want to charge a private organization for costs of providing traffic control, security and safety at a privately run event . Why should the police dept have to foot the bill for this? They are on a set budget and these races cost them alot of money. Most officers are not pulled from regular duties for this, they are on overtime.

Who else wil pay for the police officers on the midnight shift guarding your bike in transition? Who else should pay for the ambulance service to stand by in case there is an injury? Who else should pay for traffic control at all the intersections?

Someone has to foot the bill, and I can't see a reason why the local tax payers should. The private race organizers should be paying for services that they require and its very logical to pass this expense onto the participants. Who else should be paying this bill?

Yep, your race fee will increase....that's the way it is and there's no way to stop it. We all hear about all kinds of complaints when race organizers fail to provide enough traffic control, or lifeguards on the swim, or enough medical people to respond within seconds when your friend or relative gets hurt.........but who PAYS for this? You and me, as participants, thats who. And I don't mind paying at all.

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Paul

From someone who has lived/raced in NYC for a very long time, I can say that any support that the police provides is minimal at best. The Central/Prospect park races and all of the du/bi events are all crazy as it is all controlled by volunteer marshalls throughout the course. This is not your typical road race or triathlon event with police officers directing traffic. This is very typical NYC; charge a ton and offer little in return. I'm fairly sure that the ambulances are paid for by the race directors. I don't think I've ever seen a police officer on the course in any race I've ever participated in, either running or biking, in any of the major parks.

I think that this does represent a somewhat black and white view as you are suggesting pay-per-use for the Police Dept. I think any City official would be quick to tell you of the City benefits to a successful event. Countries don't bid on the World Cup or Olympics for no reason (although events of that sizes with sprialling costs and infrastructure changes seem debatable). If seen as beneficial to the City concerned, which nearly all events are, especially those attracting out of town guests, then the participants and organisers should be encouraged.

Whether the City pays for this or another part of the system pays should be the topic for debate. Pricing athletes and organisers out of the city seems a foolish way forward considering the City benefits. The City and Police Dept should be working out how to create funding / budget for events like this. Just seems a short sighted view not to.

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If this starts being the case then the police better start getting out of their cars and doing the job they are paid for. I can't tell you the number of officers I have passed in races who were not ready for me to come by.

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If you read the article, you'll see that the major complaint is that the fee won't be known in advance. Try planning around that.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

We had that one year at my event. We had our budget all set and knew we had to pay for police - well then a storm came in and the police called in backup - LOTS of backup....I am thankful they did and do not at all regret that they did to patrol the bike course in a thunder storm....KILLED my budget and I lost a ton of money....all worth it.

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What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about?

I must be naive (definitely true) but I had thought that race fees already included policy coverage!

When our school organized a local campus 5k, most of the expenses were dedicated to hiring police coverage on overtime fees to run the race. I had assumed major races were doing the same, but I guess not.

Right on. The article also mentions the NYRR (Marathon organizers) already pay a flat fee (a few hundred thousand) to the city for support, and that's negotiated a year or two in advance. This would allow the police to bill for their services AFTER the fact, potentially destroying the budgeting process.

And the city estimates $250M in economic benefit from the marathon. That has to translate to at least $25M in tax revenue methinks.

For local races in California, if the local roads are closed, the promoter has to pay for the police to control traffic, IIRC most municipal liability concerns require the police to do this job. This is typically one of the largest expenses for bicycle races in urban areas (not counting office park crits). Races in suburban/rural areas generally use state police officers at high traffic/dangerous intersections as judged by local authorities.

Some places will pay part of the expenses in return for getting some tax base from the competitors as races DO bring money to a locality. But in the economy we are in right now I can see how this would not play out at the level it has in the past. Every city/county/state departments are seeing budgets cut and can no longer afford to provide free services for events like this.

Our local, where we had races when I was chief, started by donating some of the services to have the race exposure and bring in public relations just having the race and the news coverage for our community. But as times went on, we ended up billing for the entire budget we had for the race back to the private organization and they, I assume, increased fees as a result. Most people in the area were glad we did as they did not participate and felt like they should not be paying the police with tax money to serve a private organizations event.

Remember, we are a tiny minority, playing our game......and 90% of the public don't like to pay for our play. And why should they.

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Paul

Not to worry, given the breathtaking tear the NYPD is on lately with parking tickets and cyclist traffic violations, they should have any budgeting concerns shored up in another couple of weeks.

If this is not a grab and they truly have concerns on the financial impact to their dept. they need only look inward and audit their extant overtime reports. That would solve a LOT...

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?


Oh yes, also have fun riding moguls on our already lovely streets this spring; road maintenance budget has been all but gutted.

"The club had revenues of $39 million in 2008"
I think the city and the club need to hammer out an estimate before the event, but having the city "donate" anything is a little ridiculous. But then again, I'm sure our tax money ends up "donated" to a lot of private organizations through subsidies, tax breaks, etc., but thats a topic for a different forum.

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Nothing to see here

Just add it to the javitz center tax I pay for when I stay at a hotel in NYC that I never go to? Got to give the artsy adoption crazy liberals Somewhere to go and something to do.

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but who PAYS for this? You and me, as participants, thats who. And I don't mind paying at all.

Paul,

Well said. Great post.

Indeed, who is going to pay for this?

Many events that are run on the open roads triathlons in particular got by in the early going due to the generosity of Police Dept in various jurisdictions. The events were new and cool. It was good for the town/city. It would bring lots of people and attention to the place etc . . consequently, many events got up and running and went on for years with a lot of services like this "donated". Of course we are in completely different economic times now and almost all governments at all levels are cash strapped in debt and broke, and it's the end of the road for this sort of thing. You want the roads closed and/or intersections monitored with Police for your event, you are going to have to pay for it. Many think it's just greedy RD's trying to stick it to race participants and increasing their bottom line but, any increases in race entries are pass-alongs on these increased costs.

New reality.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Of course we should pay for road closures and the associated fire/police/EMS detail. That goes without saying. But there are 3 problems with the proposed scenario:

1. It's retroactive, which wrecks havoc with race budgets. I believe most other costs are known, if not paid, well in advance and having the largest line item to be unknown until a few weeks after the race is nearly impossible to work with.

2. For local mom and pop road race, then relying on free police labor is ridiculous. I am totally in agreement on this But the NYRR already paid more than $850,000 to city agencies, including $107,000 to the police, for the marathon. While that amount could certainly go up, they aren't exactly getting those services for free right now.

3. Plus, unlike mom and pop road race, major races like the NYC marathon are huge cash cows for the cities in terms of economic activity generated. This may be true only for a handful of international/destination races, like NYC and Boston, but it is true for them and the city has to account for this. This is one reason pro sports teams have "free" police detail- the city is paid in other ways and just has to reallocate back to the police force.

But the vast majority of races we do aren't generating much additional income for a city and thus billing for police detail I think is fair, so long as it's at least estimated well in advance.

one thing i dont mind spending a little bit extra money for is good medical and police help.