Friday the 13th bike rally in Port Dover will be a ‘non-event’: Norfolk County Mayor

Bikers heading to Port Dover this weekend for the traditional Friday the 13th motorcycle rally may be left a bit deflated, as the mayor of Norfolk County says it will be a “non-event” this year.

What would have been the 40th anniversary of the event will simply be a regular day, with just a few accommodations made for the thousands of motorcycle enthusiasts that are still expected to roll into town.

“Holding to provincial regulations now in Ontario, we’re limited to 100 people for an outdoor gathering,” Mayor Kristal Chopp told CityNews. “What that means is that we have not issued any vending permits — there are no beer tents, there is no big entertainment that would have normally been set up. It’s just our stores and our restaurants. There are a couple of food trucks, but those are ones that are there all year long — that’s the extent.”

Chopp said there will be no camping or parking outside of town for vehicles and the shuttle that usually brings people into town from those sites will not be operating either.

However, portable toilets will be set up and road closures are in place on Main Street to give people shopping and walking more room to spread out and maintain physical distance.

The mayor cautions that anyone planning to visit should come well prepared for the weather.

“If it’s a really hot day, people are probably going to want to bring water with them because I think the lineups could be substantial,” she said. “Right now the forecast is calling for thunderstorms throughout the day — again just be prepared. It’s not that you’re going to have places to get into for shelter and get out of the rain.”

Typically, when a Friday the 13th lands in the summer months, the town can see up to 200,000 people arrive for the festivities. Chopp says in November 2020, just about 3,000 people showed up owing to both the weather and the pandemic.

“I think the biker community was really respectful of the fact that we were in a pandemic,” she said. “As we were in the fall, the provincial regulations [for businesses] were all dependent on how many COVID cases there were in your community. We asked people to stay away, we didn’t want to see [the businesses] being shut down.”

The mayor says she and the town council faced some backlash for that messaging last year and were accused of hating or trying to cancel Friday the 13th, but she says she is all for the event.

“The joke I keep using with people right now is my last name is Chopp and I grew up being called ‘Little Chopper,’ so I am a pretty big supporter of the event myself,” she explained. “These are just unprecedented times and I’m not going to sit here and say ‘don’t come,’ but I think people need to be very prepared” for a lack of access to businesses and facilities.

Chopp stressed that the gathering is not an organized event and “just something that happens every year,” so they have no plans for road blocks into town or increased enforcement.

“There are certainly a number of OPP officers that are on standby if the event does get out of control,” she said, but recalled that enforcement regarding travel between zones did not “go over so well” earlier in the pandemic.

“I don’t think OPP is prepared to deny entry to anyone unless it becomes a safety hazard,” she added.

For this year, she hopes people will explore the rest of Norfolk County, including the new breweries and wineries that have recently opened if they find Port Dover is “jammed up.”

Next year, the county is looking into hosting a concert series called “Project Microphone.”

“We’re hoping to do an event in Port Dover, specifically in August, geared to the biker community as well,” she said. “It’s kind of an effort to demonstrate to people that we do support the event.”