Typically held from the first week of May through the opening week of October every year, the Friday Night Car Show hosted by the Chamber of Commerce of the Bellmores has been postponed for 2020 due to the absence of a permit from the Town of Hempstead.
However, the lack of a permit and a host didn’t stop roughly 200 car and motorcycle enthusiasts from congregating for months at the usual location — the Bellmore Long Island Rail Road parking lot on Bellmore Avenue — until authorities broke up a gathering on July 31 following noise complaints from residents.
That night, a Herald photographer at the scene witnessed Nassau County Police Department cruisers and Metropolitan Transit Authority vehicles close down the unauthorized “car show.” Officials escorted attendants, vendors and a DJ off the lot for operating without supervision or a permit.
“We were not issued a permit for the car show this year,” said Chamber President Jim Spohrer. “It’s pretty well-known that we don’t have the permit. We’ve had a message posted on our website and a sign posted in the parking lot that it’s postponed until further notice.
“We couldn’t conduct the shows with the social distance guidelines in place due to the pandemic, so the town returned our check for the [permit] application,” Spohrer added.