City attacking iconic small business?
(farmers, cab drivers, chess players … )
(2-16-10)
It was a busy day on Fisherman’s Wharf (yesterday) and there was a crowd circled around
and photographing the cop wearing Badge #192 as he threatened the Techno/Robotic Silver
Man who sat on his plastic bucket and took in the abuse. I pulled out my Bulldog
press pass, clipped it on and moved closer to listen:
Cop #192 (angrily writing citation):
“So, I can arrest you and you can tell it to a judge tomorrow.
Do you want to do that!?!”
Silver Man: Looking at ground mumbles “No.”.
Cop #192 to me: “What do you think you’re doing?”
Moi: “I have an online blog and I watch cops.”
Cop #192: “I don’t have to answer any of your questions!!”
Ellen Gamble’s youngest: “I just hate to see street artists hassled.”
(Tourist cell phone cameras rolling on busy sunny day)
Cop #192: “You’re jumping to conclusions.”
Bulldog: “You seem very aggressive for a cop working around tourists.”
Cop #192: “I don’t have to answer your questions!”
Me again: “I never asked you any questions.”
I was on the return leg of my daily walk from the Tenderloin to Marina Green and back
by way of Mason street (takes in whole of Tourists area of Fisherman’s Wharf) … I’d
noticed further up the street that the ‘Bush Man’ who was doing a brisk business
(surrounded by laughing crowd from Peoria clicking away with cameras) … the Bush
Man was gone on my return trip (did #192 get him too cause behind his bush, like Silver
Man under his paint, he was a black man?). I’d hate to think that.
Two poor black micro-businessmen destroyed for the day by a white cop with an attitude.
Two black men whose talent (Silver man is hell of a performer and Bush Man is,
well, Bush Man) … I truly doubt that any of the million people who come to the
Wharf every year come in hopes of watching Badge #192 give a black small businessman a
bunch of shit. But, that’s the image they were all taking home on their cell cams.
Anger welled up inside me and I wished I could have given the cop a $500 ticket for
hurting the image of SF and the SFPD on that sunny morning.
Chess Guy and clients mostly black
At the other end of the Cable Car line at Powell and Market is another small street
business run by a black entrepreneur. He’s John Powell (how appropriate) and a
month or so back the cops ran his enterprise away from the turnaround at Powell and
Market where it’s been for 14 years. He works a block further up now and doesn’t
want any trouble. The City won’t give the chess concession a permit at this time.
It keeps em at their mercy.
City attacks on Allemany Market farmers
The Allemany Farmers Market worked just fine as a collective for 50 years until Amy
Brown became head of the City’s Real Estate Office. She and her fellow
empire-building aide, John Updyke then made it a mission to seize control of such
neighborhood markets, shuffle the stands, raise the fees, install micro-wave towers and
generally fuck things up (plus they get to hire a new employee who answers only to
them).
They tried the same thing at the Civic Center Farmers Market across from City Hall but
Chris Daly and the D-6 neighbors were able to hold them off. Brown and Updyke held
forth with how the farmers vehicles were destroying the plaza (bullshit, the City
bought a lousy brick paving job that’s failing for blocks in either direction and wants
to pawn it off on the small farmers – it’s the City trucks who attack the bricks with
high pressure hoses every night at midnight and I know cause I’ve watched them for
years).
Item #4 on today’s agenda of the Board’s Audit and Oversight committee
is a hearing called by D-10’s Supervisor Sophie Maxwell to investigate how the City’s
stewardship of the Allemany Market is going. We’ll see won’t we?
Newsom takes future from 1,700 cab drivers
People wait in line for up to 15 years to receive a cab medallion. If they’re lucky
they might get another 15 or 20 years use out of them before they’re, by law, returned
to the pool where the next waiting drivers get their shot at running their own small
business.
These are all small businesses you know. The cabbies. The Bush Man. Silver
Man. The farmers. The Chess Guy. The Night Club owners.
Hip Hop venues attract rowdy blacks
Remember when there was no Entertainment Commission? The cops made it impossible to
get permits for virtually any large party where black people might gather. Stories
of how the cop in charge of rating sound levels in spaces screwed around and
manipulated them are legendary. So, the parties went on but like black street
entertainment, without permits. The cops prefer it that way.
Jimmy’s Old Car Picnic
If you’re a white millionaire with a vintage car you and your friends can take over Nob
Hill and any other area you want in this town to parade your toys. The cops will
kiss your ass at every intersection.
If you’re a red neck with a mint shape ‘62 Impala or a Latino with a custom low-rider
and you’ve been showing at Jimmy’s Old Car Picnic in Golden Gate Park for 22 years?
Fuck you.
They deported the Crepe Guy
Greg Corrales’ truncheon-wielding Mission Station thugs follow the Tamale Lady and her
ilk from block to block and park to park trying to drive them out of business. Last
year the Port Authority tried to drive Red’s Java Hut on the Embarcadero out of
business with a huge rent increase.
The City is anti-Small Businesses
While the Newsom administration calls for tax cuts for businesses they define as
’small’, on the ground their forces are waging a systematic campaign to destroy true
entry-level micro enterprises. Particularly if they are run by people of color.
Everyone who knows the streets of San Francisco knows this to be true.
What you can do
You can’t do shit. Just as you suspected. It’s all part of the Gentrification
war that lower income San Franciscans have been losing since the Redevelopment Agency
was created to force them out of Yerba Buena.
The cops love it. Hell, like C.W. Nevius who touts the goal of increased
gentrification in the Chronicle, they’re from Walnut Creek. They’d prefer a City
full of Wal Marts and Home Depots. Sometimes these places hire a clown to stand
outside and pitch their products. But, if you rinse off their makeup? They’re
all white.
Go Giants!
h.
