Illegal street racing is a growing concern for industrial businesses in southeast Calgary.
Global News has spoken to several businesses in the area that say in the evening hours on weekends, street racers turn 76th Avenue SE into a drag strip.
“I’ve seen three cars racing side by side. I’ve seen up to, you know, four or five kind of going back and forth, maybe even more,” says Last Spike Brewery manager Evan Kaslander.
Kaslander says the brewery is in its fifth year of business. Since it opened, the drag races have been an ongoing issue not only on the streets, but in parking lots where racers are also seen to vandalize the lots, leaving skid marks everywhere.
He and other businesses are worried these acts and high speeds may get employees and other innocent people hurt or even killed.
“It’s loud. I mean, they’re loud, really dangerous. They’re going really fast and … they’re taking up the entire road when they’re going side by side and really not caring about who’s around.”
Last month, surveillance cameras outside the brewery caught video of a single-vehicle collision after a car lost control during an alleged race, crashing into several light standards in its path.
Kaslander says police informed him that both occupants of the vehicle walked away from the crash with one of them suffering only a broken finger.
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“I was surprised that anyone was still alive,” he says. “Taking out the light standard and seeing that fall and seeing just the damage and smoke as the car went across the road, I mean it went for a good few hundred feet after it hit the light standard.”
City of Calgary Ward 9 councillor Gian-Carlo Carra says he hasn’t received any complaints from businesses in the area, however, he believes illegal racing has skyrocketed in southeast Calgary.
“I think we’ve all seen it (romanticized by) the movies like The Fast and the Furious,” says the councillor.
“I think we understand that, that in the city of 1.5 million people … there’s going to be a healthy subculture that that likes to race their cars, and so i think it’s really important that we … have venues for people to do this,” he added.
In a statement, Calgary police told Global News that they are aware of the illegal street racing situation in the city’s southeast.
“Our traffic section is continuously working on a city-wide plan to address it. At this time, there is no further information to share. We strongly encourage anyone who sees dangerous driving to report it to police,” the statement concluded.
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