'Burnouts and fireworks on the roof of a building': Hundreds gather for illegal car meet in south London

What was intended as a meet up of car enthusiasts over the weekend, quickly got out of hand.

519 Meets organized a car rally in south London on Saturday in a Value Village parking lot, and it turned out to be their largest ever.

“It was pretty awesome, that's for sure,” says Aiden Armstrong who attended the event on his motorcycle. “But, a lot of stuff went down like burnouts, revving, fireworks”.

Reynold VanHerpe owns the Trek cycling shop right next door. He was called back to his shop after his alarm went off when someone was banging on the glass and urinating on the exterior of his business.

“I was ok with the rally next door, but be respectful,” says Van Herpe, who estimates there were a few hundred cars and motorcycles.

“There was cars everywhere. They were lighting fireworks on the Value Village roof. Pedestrians blocked off Wellington completely and they were doing donuts in the middle of Wellington Road.”

Fireworks were set off on the roof of Value Village in South London, Ont. during an illegal car rally on Saturday Sept. 21, 2024. (Source: Dread Head Media/519_meets)

“I heard the noise and it woke up my daughter,” said Allan Tipping, who lives just down the road on Dingman Drive. “So I came over to see what was going on. In this parking lot, all you could see was cars and hot rods - it's a great rally until it ends up one does something smart, and that's what happened”.

The aftermath of the event showed tire marks from burnouts all over the parking lot, and there was food garbage all over the ground.

London Police Service was initially called for reports of a pedestrian possibly being hit by a car. When police arrived, they tell CTV News that report turned out to be false, but they did recognize the cars were trespassing and asked them to leave.

“Once cops arrived, they blocked off the entrance to this parking lot and the cars had no other way out,” says Tipping.

“Well, they decided to make this way out at the back through this person's property, There's lots of tracks on this strangers lawn and looks like a couple had some problems climbing the ditch over there.”

519_meets on Instagram who organized the meet posted on social media thanking those who showed support for their biggest ever meet.

 

 

 

 

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However, they were not happy with those who did not respect their rules. They tell CTV News they gathered the license plates and names of those who broke their rules and will be sharing them with the authorities.

“Tonight was a real show of decline in the car scene as a whole,” the group posted on Instagram. “It’s infested with 15 year olds thinking it’s ok to block a whole road. Let alone doing donuts in the road. This behavior is not condoned at our meets and never will be.”

They added that they’ll be brainstorming to determine what is next for their future meets.

The neighbours believe the police would have left them alone if they didn’t start doing burnouts.

Tire marks from burnouts on Wellington Rd. South in front of the entrance to the Value Village parking lot - made during an illegal car rally on Sept. 21, 2024 (Brent Lale/CTV News London)

“There was a lot of nice cars, and I actually went over to check them out because I’m a car guy,” says Van Herpe. “But all of a sudden it just got out of hand with the fireworks on the roof of the building and there’s a chance to set it on fire. I don't think anybody minded having all the cars there, but when they're blocking Wellington Road so that nobody can get by and they're doing donuts in the middle of the road, somebody's going to get hurt.”