The man who head the group who successfully requested that the city of Palm Springs cancel the annual American Heat biker weekend has rented out his entire hotel this weekend to The Mongols Motorcycle Club.
Hilton Palm Springs General Manager Aftab Dada is also the chairman of PS Resorts. Last week, PS Resorts requested that the Palm Springs City Council cancel biker weekend out of safety concerns. The group said in a statement:
“After carefully listening to the (Palm Springs) Chief of Police about the potential growing threat of violence between rival gangs, it was necessary for PS Resorts to debate the historical merits of this event against the potential of people being injured due to violence that might potentially follow this event,” the group said in the statement.
The city gave in to the request of PS Resorts (because the city council loves those TOT taxes almost as much as they love consulting fees).
But while Dada’s group had safety concerns for American Heat Weekend, Dada’s hotel has no problem at all hosting one of the most notorious biker gangs in the nation this weekend – having rented out the entire Hilton Palm Springs to The Mongols.
As for how this is different, Dada said he he has no security concerns about this coming weekend because it will only be the Mongols coming to town and it is July and not October (as if that matters for some reason).
“These are two different events happening at two different times, this is during the month of July and this is a private event,” Dada told KESQ. “It is an event that takes place annually at the Hilton Palm Springs these are individuals that bring their families, they eat drink sleep right at the Hilton only.”
Naturally, many in Palm Springs find this to be a bit hypocritical. “It seems very unfair to me, if the chairman of PS Resorts was the driving force of closing the American Heat this year, it just seems a little strange that he would be hosting that group this weekend himself,” Greg LaRiviere, owner of Palm Canyon Roadhouse told KESQ. LaRiviere claims he will lose thousands of dollars due to the cancellation of the biker weekend.
