The Finnegan Project: How a Restaurant Crash Is Changing Bollard Laws Across North America

On July 30, 2025, a car crashed through the front entrance of a Portillo's restaurant in Oswego, Illinois. Inside, families were eating lunch. Two-year-old Finnegan Trooper McKee was killed. Thirteen other people were injured, three critically.

The vehicle — a 2011 Lincoln MKZ driven by a 50-year-old woman from Michigan — traveled across the parking lot and struck the building at its most vulnerable point: the glass entrance, directly in front of nose-in parking spaces. There were no bollards. No barriers. No protection of any kind between the parking lot and the diners.

Nothing is going to bring our little acorn back. This incident was preventable and foreseeable.— Schyler and Christina McKee, Finnegan's parents

What Happened at Portillo's Oswego

The Portillo's restaurant at 2810 U.S. Route 34 in Oswego featured a common but dangerous design: nose-in parking directly facing a glass entrance, with no physical barriers separating vehicles from pedestrians. The parking lot and entrance were designed so that any vehicle malfunction — a stuck accelerator, a confused pedal — would send a car directly into the occupied dining area.

Following an almost three-month investigation, Oswego Police determined the driver mistakenly pressed the gas pedal instead of the brake. No criminal charges were filed. The Kendall County State's Attorney's Office reviewed the case and concurred that the crash was a tragic accident, not a criminal act.

What made this case particularly damning: Portillo's had installed protective measures elsewhere on the property — safeguarding parts of the building and a light pole — while leaving diners exposed at the most vulnerable point of entry.

The Finnegan Project

In the months following their son's death, Schyler and Christina McKee founded The Finnegan Project — a nonprofit organization dedicated to advocating for the installation of bollards and concrete barriers in front of public businesses across North America.

The organization's mission is direct: prevent future tragedies through thoughtful building design. The Finnegan Project partners with municipalities to draft and pass bollard ordinances, starting with Oswego and expanding to other communities.

Finnegan's bright spirit and warm-hearted ambition drive us to push for safer, more secure public spaces. Everything he did came from love and kindness, and it's important to us that something protective and meaningful comes from this.— Schyler and Christina McKee

The McKee family has also filed a lawsuit seeking more than $100,000 in damages against Portillo's, arguing that the restaurant's failure to install barriers at its entrance was a foreseeable negligence.

Finnegan's Law: What It Requires

On December 9, 2025, the Oswego Village Board unanimously passed Finnegan's Law — an ordinance amending the village's Unified Development Ordinance to require vehicle impact protection at commercial buildings. The law is the first of its kind to comprehensively mandate bollards across multiple building categories.

Finnegan's Law requires bollards or similar vehicle impact protection devices at:

1. 1Public entrances in B-1 business districts and M-1 manufacturing districts
2. 2Non-residential uses in residential areas — including churches, schools, and community centres
3. 3Residential care facilities — assisted living and nursing homes
4. 4Storefront windows within two feet of ground level
5. 5Outdoor dining areas adjacent to parking
6. 6Outdoor play areas at daycare centres

The ordinance establishes specific standards for placement, spacing, and impact resistance — ensuring that protection is consistent and effective across the entire village.

A Legislative Tidal Wave

Oswego's Finnegan's Law is not an isolated event. Across North America, municipalities are passing bollard requirements at an accelerating pace — each one driven by a preventable tragedy.

The pattern is unmistakable: a vehicle crashes into a building, someone is killed or seriously injured, and the municipality responds by mandating the barriers that should have been there all along. The question for every property owner is whether they want to install protection before or after the tragedy that forces their hand.

The Canadian Connection

Canadian property owners watching this legislative trend should take note. Ontario has already acted. Following the Richmond Hill daycare crash that killed 18-month-old Liam Riazati in September 2025, the Ontario government announced a $20 million fund to install concrete barriers at daycare centres across the province.

Alberta has not yet passed similar legislation — but the trajectory is clear. Every province and municipality is one tragedy away from mandatory bollard requirements. Commercial property owners in Edmonton, Calgary, and Red Deer who install bollards now are ahead of inevitable regulation and can demonstrate proactive duty of care.

The Storefront Safety Council has documented more than 24,000 vehicle-into-building crashes in their research database. Their data, audited in collaboration with Lloyd's of London, confirms that these incidents occur with alarming regularity across every type of commercial building.

What Restaurant and Business Owners Should Do Now

You don't need to wait for legislation to protect your patrons. The Portillo's crash demonstrated what happens when a business chooses to protect a light pole but not the people eating inside.

1. 1Assess your entrance exposure — if vehicles park nose-in toward your entrance, you have the same vulnerability that killed Finnegan McKee
2. 2Install steel bollards along building faces adjacent to parking — standard bollard installation costs $400–$800 per bollard, a fraction of a single insurance claim
3. 3Protect outdoor dining areas — patios adjacent to parking lots or drive aisles are high-risk zones — consider hostile vehicle mitigation measures that Finnegan's Law specifically targets
4. 4Document your protection — a professional site security assessment creates a record of due diligence that strengthens your liability position
5. 5Review your insurance — many commercial insurers offer premium reductions for properties with documented vehicle intrusion protection

The Cost of Waiting

Portillo's has since installed bollards and parking stops at the Oswego location. The cost of those bollards was a few thousand dollars. The cost of not having them: a child's life, 13 injuries, a wrongful death lawsuit exceeding $100,000 in damages, national media coverage, and a municipal ordinance bearing the name of the child who died.

Every commercial building adjacent to a parking lot faces this same calculation. The technology to prevent these tragedies is simple, proven, and affordable. Bollards are not decorative — they are the last line of defence between a parking lot and the people inside a building.

Finnegan Trooper McKee would be three years old today. His parents are channelling their grief into ensuring that no other family endures what they have endured. The least that property owners can do is install the barriers that would have saved him.