MONTREAL -- With an overnight curfew approaching on the weekend, Montreal police (SPVM) were out Wednesday night breaking up car gatherings in the Riviere-des-Prairies borough.

Around 10 squad cars arrived at a parking lot in Riviere-des-Prairies on Maurice-Duplessis Blvd. and Rita-Levi Montalcini Ave. to break up one gathering where around a half-dozen luxury vehicles were idling.

"We had some people that tried to make some car gatherings, but there is no major event on that," said SPVM spokesperson Julien Levesque.

Police broke up the gathering and the vehicles left without incident.

Police break up car gathering in RDP

Quebec defines a gathering as "when two or more people who do not live at the same address get together."

Levesque said typically, the car gatherings break up before officers arrive.

If officers do come upon a gathering, however, highway safety code or health measure violations can be issued.

"We try to find them and determine if the gathering is illegal or not, and we do what we have to do," said Levesque.

He said no health code violations were handed out Wednesday night.

Overnight curfews will begin Saturday at 8 p.m.

For four weeks, people are not allowed on the streets except for work between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Residents, however, are permitted to walk their dogs within a kilometre of their residences.