The Long Beach Car Show may have lost its parking spot

By Theo Douglas

Kevin Rheault started the Long Beach Car Show four years ago in memory of his young son Tyler, whom he’d lost to leukemia–and he went into partnership with another man, Victor Martinez, who’d also lost a loved one to cancer. But staging a car show for all the right reasons may not have been enough this year.
According to Queen Mary officials and merchants on Fourth Street’s retro row–between Cherry and Junipero avenues, where this year’s edition of the car show would have been held Saturday–this time it may not happen at all.
“Everything kind of started happening last week when we got a notice from [the Long Beach Special Events Department] that Kevin, whom we’ve dealt with, did not have proper insurance and did not have enough security,” Kerstin Kansteiner, owner of Portfolio coffeehouse at Fourth Street and Junipero Avenue, said late Tuesday. “He’s done the event many times, but I don’t think he was prepared for all the red tape the city has to offer if you do the event on a public street.” Neither Rheault nor Martinez responded to voicemail messages left late Tuesday.
The show’s three previous editions took place on private property, at St. Anthony High School, Kansteiner said, but city regulations are different and potentially more troublesome when public property is involved.
“I think it would have been a great event and I think it would have fit the street, but there’s a bus line, it’s a public street, and I think he just bit off a little more than he could chew,” she said.
Fourth Street business owners said the one ray of hope for the show–full disclosure: sponsored in part by The District–was that it might relocate outside the Queen Mary. But Queen Mary officials said that was impossible.
“What happened was, we heard that their permits were being pulled by the city because they didn’t have enough security. And they didn’t have enough money to hire more security,” Queen Mary Special Events Director John Adamson told The District Tuesday, after City Hall was closed. (City Hall hours are 7:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. weekdays.)
“Someone called us and said ‘Can we [have the car show] over at the Queen Mary,” Adamson said–adding that he didn’t take the call personally. “The city called us and said ‘You can’t put that on here–it’s not permitted.’ And ‘We said we’re not going to. We can’t.’”
The septuagenarian ocean liner is busy this weekend. On Saturday, the 59th Annual Catalina Water Ski Race leaves town–returning later that day to a finish line just off the Queen Mary’s tail end. On Sunday, the ship hosts the 10th Annual Caribbean Seabreeze Festival of reggae music. And as of this writing, there are just three days until the car show.
“I think honestly he’s just frantic trying to find a private property to hold this event,” Kansteiner said of Rheault. “It would be awesome if he could find a place to hold this event. People are coming from all over to this.”