Cruisin' car event officially coming back to Ocean City

It's official: Cruisin' is definitely coming back to Ocean City this spring. 

During the consent agenda Tuesday, the Ocean City Town Council approved the memorandum of understanding to bring the event back by a vote of 6-0. Mary Knight, Ocean City Town Council secretary, was not present at the meeting.

The event will take place in Ocean City from May 17-20.

Even with a unanimous vote, though, there were still concerns raised.

"Last spring, the event was unacceptable," said Dennis Dare, Ocean City Town Council member. "The lawlessness and carnage was unacceptable."

In November 2017, the Ocean City Police Commission presented the town council a "motor events racing matrix," which scored each of the town's six major car events in nine categories, with one being a good rating and five being bad.

Cruisin' and H2Oi received the worst ratings, with a four or higher in behavior of non-event attendees, behavior of roadside crowds, level of law enforcement required, desired demographics, requirement of backfill business, adverse social media impact and pedestrian endangerment.

During the 2017 Endless Summer Cruisin' event, which took place from Oct. 5-8, Ocean City saw at least two major pedestrian accidents.

In 2016, Ocean City Cruisin', the event's spring iteration, saw two fatalities — the death of a Germantown man whose motorcycle crashed into a pickup truck and the death of a Pennsylvania man who fell form a hotel balcony.

READ MORE: H2Oi, Cruisin’: Officials weigh fines, other venues amid 'mayhem'

A year prior, a Millersville man faced six traffic violations after he was caught on video performing doughnuts in the middle of the highway.

A 27 member Motor Events Task Force was created in December to look at ways to lessen the impact of these events.

Other members of the council had similar concerns Tuesday.

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Councilmen Matt James and Wayne Hartman both said they were confident that the Motor Event Task Force has made progress to prevent issues that arose in previous years.

"Allied agencies have improved in terms of reinforcements," Hartman said. "So across the board, there are several things that will improve."

This year's Cruisin' won't be just in Ocean City.

In January, the event organizers announced the event would also be pairing with Delaware Racing to add a third Crusin' location at the U.S. 13 Dragway in Delmar on May 18 and 19.

The goal of expanding to Delmar was to give participants the chance to explore more of Delmarva, said Bob Rothermel in a previous interview. The Delmar location will feature more of a more racetrack-themed itinerary, including events like burnouts and timed racing.

On Twitter @hughesg19

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