The Brooklyn Paper announces that the Columbia Heights soapbox derby has hit the finish line before the race even began. It appears that founder John Mejias's master plan of getting a city permit via a friend, who would be filming the derby for a documentary, garnered too much press and eventually led his decision to cancel the event. The paper reports that "once the news broke about Mejias’s permit, he faced renewed scrutiny from the city. Fearing too much attention to his formerly under-the-radar event, Mejias said he capped the field at 12 — then cancelled the event altogether." Or did he. In the past he's moved the location, and taken it off-the-radar again by doing so.