Blue Knights Benefit Ride is Rejected by Community Board

The Blue Knights MC is comprised of mostly law enforcement members and it is a national organization.  The club engages in fund raising events for many community organization benefits.  One chapter of the Blue Knights MC, based in New Jersey, has been conducting a ride to benefit children afflicted with serious illnesses like leukemia and multiple sclerosis. They visit Mulberry Street in Manhatten's Little Italy district. The ride is known as "Gooch's Garlic Run" and attracts hundreds of active and retired law enforcement officers.  This year would have been the 23rd year for the ride...I say would have been because a community board voted down the application for the permit this year.

The reasons given for denying the permit included noise concerns and no connection with the neighborhood by the group, since they're from New Jersey.  That seems a bit odd, since I'm sure the many wonderful restaurants on Mulberry Street do not check for residency among the clientele. Perhaps with the over zealous enforcement of loud pipes in New York, the community board didn't want to show favoritism to the Blue Knights MC.  Whatever the reason, the big losers are the research facilities and hospitals that treat these ill children. Secondary to that, the pasta merchants will certainly lose out also with several hundred hungry cops looking for Mexican or Chinese take-out instead.

No worry and no need to start singing Core 'ngrato.  The Blue Knights MC say they intend to pay the toll from New Jersey into Manhatten and will be eating in Little Italy this June. There's no law against that. We'll have to wait to see how the community board handles this situation, but good for the Blue Knights. They're sticking to their plan, permit or not.

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