Sideshows became the alternative hot spot for those too young to gain entrance into 21-and-over nightclubs, and had outgrown the parking lots of Eastmont Mall and Foothill Square.
[11]: 256 On June 8, 2005, the Oakland City Council narrowly defeated a measure (pushed by then-mayor Jerry Brown) which would have subjected spectators at sideshows to criminal sanctions, such as fines and even jail terms.
[16] On February 23, 2023, the state of Texas and Governor Greg Abbott launched a taskforce to address sideshows following numerous incidents that arose in Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and Austin – the latter garnered statewide attention when one takeover saw participants repel police officers of the Austin Police Department (APD), who arrived over twenty minutes late, to disperse and potentially arrest both the drivers and spectators.
[17] By the following month, seventeen people associated with the Austin sideshow were apprehended by the APD and facing charges, ranging from misdemeanors for reckless driving to felonies for organized crime.
Steve McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety who is working with both the APD and Travis County District Attorney José Garza, warned the street takeovers are not isolated to Austin and are occurring statewide.
"[18] On June 10, 2023, a street takeover in the North Richland Hills area of Tarrant County, Texas led police into a chase that ended in a crash.
[19] On June 11, 2023, Oklahoma City police arrested over 110 people involved in a street takeover in the parking lot of a warehouse at a business complex; the number of automobiles present varied from 75 to 100, and more than 50 of them were impounded.
[20] On July 23, 2023, in Seattle, a 20-year-old woman was killed and three others were shot during a takeover of the Broadway and East Pike Street intersection on Capitol Hill.
Additionally, the latter bill will add two new offenses to the organized criminal activity statute: reckless driving exhibition and racing on a highway.
"[22] At a 2024 Juneteenth celebration in Oakland involving a sideshow, a mass shooting occurred and sixteen people were hospitalized with at least fifteen having gunshot wounds.
[25] Early Sunday, June 23rd 2024, at 1:56 AM, the eastbound[26] lanes of the Bay Bridge was blocked up with at least 6 vehicles and hundreds of spectators until 2:22 AM with the cars doing doughnuts and fireworks going off.