Residents of Angelino Heights, the neighborhood where character Dominic Toretto works and lives in the films, allege the series encourages car stunts that keep them up at night.
The tenth installment of the Fast & Furious franchise, titled Fast & Furious X as part of a now decades-long tradition of refusing to name the movies in a way that is in any way coherent, is deep into filming. Those shoots will take the production to the Los Angeles neighborhood of Angelino Heights next, the site of the in-canon Toretto family business, known outside of the Fast & Furious universe as Bob’s Market.
While all shoots come with some level of day-to-day disruption, Angelino Heights residents are concerned more with the outcome of the neighborhood actually showing up in a Fast & Furious film again. The Bob’s Market site, a registered historic place in Los Angeles dating back to 1915, has become a hot spot for car-related tourism thanks to its part in the original The Fast & The Furious. According to residents quoted in Variety, that tourism often takes the form of exhibitions of reckless driving that have led to crashes, trash can-related arson, and, in at least one case, a driver pulling a gun on a resident.
According to an Instagram post shared by the “Streets Are For Everyone” non-profit organization, the protest is focused on sending a message to Universal, the studio behind Fast & Furious, saying “illegal street racing, sideshows, and street takeovers are dangerous.”
Those “takeovers,” in particular, have been a growing problem throughout the Los Angeles area since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. While city police have put aggressive countermeasures into place to slow the spread of these takeovers, smaller displays throughout neighborhoods like Angelino Heights have not yet been a part of the department’s publicly-stated focus.
The protest is set to take place at Bob’s Market Friday morning and continue again later in the evening.