By JOHN KOZIOL
Staff Writer

LACONIA — While the Laconia Motorcycle Rally & Race Week Association doesn’t see itself "owning" Bike Week, it does, however, envision closer cooperation with other parties, including a city committee, on how to improve the event.

Charlie St. Clair and Jennifer Anderson, who are the executive director and director of Rally & Race, respectively, made those comments on Tuesday during an editorial board meeting at The Citizen headquarters.

The future of Bike Week has become a topic of great interest and discussion because of what some in the community feel is law enforcement and the local media’s concerns about potential violence between motorcycle clubs being blown "out of proportion."

Another reason why Bike Week may be on people’s minds perhaps is due to recent statements by city and county officials that not only were those concerns justified, but also that Bike Week may have gotten a little out of hand and has to be reined back in.

Bike Week, St. Clair began, is "made up of many, many events," which made it difficult for him to understand why Laconia would propose, for instance, having a referendum to set its length.

No referendum has been set, or even formally proposed, but during an editorial board meeting on Monday at The Citizen with Mayor Mark Fraser and members of the Laconia Police Commission and the Belknap County Commission, the participants, with the exception of Fraser who took no position, were unanimously in favor of cutting the event down to four days as a way of reducing the demands on and the costs of providing emergency and other services.

Laconia can control Bike Week vendor licensing and site plan reviews, but little else, said St. Clair, who added that from his perspective, if the cost of Bike Week to the city could be mitigated, "a lot of our (Race & Rally’s) headaches would go away."

Maybe there are other ways to bring Bike Week money into city coffers, St. Clair suggested, such as having a train run from downtown during the event and having vending booths in and around Veterans Square which would hopefully increase the number of people patronizing businesses in that area.

The city’s running a deficit during this year’s Bike Week was a concern he heard several times, said St. Clair, as was the threat of violence between rival motorcycle clubs.

Negative publicity about the latter, coupled with a problematic city Bike Week vending and site review process, hurt the event, he said, as did the frequent rain showers which kept attendance down.

As to the future of Bike Week, "I don’t know where it’s going," said St. Clair who pointed out that there is a "group of people who don’t like this event," and who this year "hitched their wagon" of opposition to it in the name of public safety.

Violence between motorcycle clubs has existed before Bike Week and since, he said, and, ironically, with all the police around, "the safest place to be during Bike Week is in The Weirs."

With Bike Week having become what she said was "a world class event," Race and Rally’s goal was to ensure its "sustainability," said Anderson.

St. Clair noted, however, that mere promotion of Bike Week is not "something you ever rest on," because "there is competition, quite frankly," from other rallies who would like a share of the Bike Week pie.

This year, Mt. Washington Valley communities said "we want to be a part of Bike Week" in the form of a motorcycles-only ride to the clouds, said St. Clair, as did the state planetarium in Concord and if not for Rally and Race to coordinate those events so they did not conflict with each other, "who are they going to call?"

"I don’t see us changing in that capacity," of serving as schedulers, said St. Clair, nor will Rally & Race cease trying to come up with ideas on how the city might recoup some of its Bike Week expenses.

For years, Rally & Race urged the city to rent space on the boardwalk in The Weirs, he said, and finally, it did so beginning last year.

Rally & Race does not "own" Bike Week, St. Clair stressed.

"All we own is some office furniture and a van," he said, and to the question of whether Rally & Race could transition itself to become the "owner" and primary operator of Bike Week, St. Clair replied that "I don’t see anyone saying ‘you tell us what to do,’ ... that’s just not going to happen."

Rally & Race tries to keep Bike Week running smoothly, "but when somebody says ‘Do you own the event?’ I say which event," St. Clair said, because there are more than 100 individual events that comprise Bike Week, some of which are located far away from The Weirs.

"Like a lot of people," St. Clair agreed that the state had to come up with a Bike Week revenue-sharing mechanism that at least covered the cost of State Police patrols which are now borne by the city. He also said the city should begin its vending and site plan review process in the summer, not winter, to ensure that Laconia was able to attract as many vendors as possible and therefore maximize its income from those fees.

He discounted, however, the idea of charging one user fee to Bike Week patrons that allowed them to enter all events, because as he said earlier, many of the events are so geographically scattered.

Bike Week is a "true rally," he pointed out, whereas Americade in New York is a for-profit venture.

St. Clair defended the fact that Bike Week accepts money from the Hells Angels, which is a patron and whose New Hampshire chapter has a clubhouse in The Weirs.

Prior to the start of Bike Week this year, the Hells Angels were identified by law enforcement agencies as the possible targets of revenge from other clubs with whom their truces had broken down.

Pressed, St. Clair admitted that he would not accept money from the Ku Klux Klan because he knew of its racist and intolerant views, but it was not clear what the Hells Angels stood for.

St. Clair said he had "no problems" with the Hells Angels or any so-called "outlaw" clubs, but did say he supported preemptive police measures to prevent biker violence.

He said that in South Dakota, for example, police regularly, but within the letter of the law, "shake down" outlaws headed for the Sturgis rally every 20 miles or so, so that by the time the bikers arrive at the event, they’re too spent to cause any trouble.

Both he and Anderson questioned the wisdom of reducing Bike Week to four days — which is when, each said, that the majority of problems occur — and also of having so large a police presence in the early part of the event.

Would Rally & Race participate in a "meeting of the minds," St. Clair and Anderson were asked, and St. Clair answered that the association saw its role more as one of offering ideas, rather than as of a decision maker.

Rally & Race, did, however, support reactivating a municipal Bike Week committee in Laconia as a member previously proposed, said St. Clair.

Asked whether some businesses shut down during Bike Week, Anderson acknowledged that some did, but, she added, the people who earn money during Bike Week then go back into the community to patronize those and other businesses.

Bike Week is "always going to be a lightning rod for somebody," St. Clair conceded and he agreed with Rally & Race member Lou Gaynor of the Weirs Beach Lobster Pound that Bike Week does cause "inconveniences" to people in The Weirs and possibly elsewhere.

"But we’re in a tourist-based economy," St. Clair said, adding that the "residual benefits" of Bike Week outweigh the problems it causes.

It’s always easier to think positively rather than negatively, Anderson observed, while the larger question that people should be concentrating on, said St. Clair, is "How can we make this work?"