exposing the brutal gentrifcation squad known as lower polk neighbors

the LPN holiday party 2007

2007-12-28T07:47:00.000-08:00

Ah, Hank's Franks = a genuine community cultural asset-- not. So excited it's finally open.

Since there was no agenda items, I took to eavesdropping conversations. Actually, I'm not going to call it eavesdropping when some intoxicated asshole is screaming obnoxiously in your ear in a public place. There were a few typical;y ironic, moderately interesting images and moments (perhaps more enjoyable if you hate LPN already, which I know you do).

Drunken shouted conversation between an employee from Assemblyman Mark Leno's staff and a LPN party-goer, where the former said, "Yes I live in the neighborhood... We continue pushing forward... We will have marriage equality in California."

Framed young Frank Sinatra mug shot poster, just like the kind you'd get from Fisherman's Wharf, hung on the wall opposite the main entrance. (Is this the kinds of criminals LPN likes? Gangsta! Gangsta!)

Reverend Dr. Wilfried Glabach of the nearly finished First Congregational Church on the 1300 block of Van Ness pouring bottled [POPULAR BEER CORPORATION BRAND NAME SUPPRESSED] into a plastic trapezoidal shot cup, both possibly from [BIG BOX MEMBERSHIP-BASED DISCOUNT WAREHOUSE CHAIN STORE NAME SUPPRESSED] and evidently staples of the party-hosting establishment during its business hours.

According to David Chiu, Larkin Street Youth Services "clients" flier for LPN every two weeks.

Supervisor Sandoval standing close to the door near the end of his standoffish semi-official political presence routine declaring the cliche one generally uses for such perfunctory occasions, "There's more power here than all of City Hall!"

Second Half of Police Captain Al Croce Casciato's Rant

2007-12-10T03:16:00.000-08:00

So now we bring all you fine blog-reading activists our second look at the Captain Al Croce Casciato rant at the Sudachi LPN meeting in September; when Captain Al dwelled rather obsessively upon the seemingly endless erotic possibilities of public surveillance for authoritarian bodies.

But first a question. What do cops read? Jane Jacobs. One of the greatest difficulties around organizing against the gentrification on Polk Street has been the lack of a clear unified target. When gentrification is caused by drastic rezoning measures the clear target then becomes City Hall, as with Manhattan in the 1990's under Mayor Giuliani. At previous LPN meetings it has been revealed that because Polk Street is fractured by many different zoning ordinances its not possible to round it up into one anti-poor zone, much to the endlessly stated frustration of Case + Abst Architects. LPN is comprised of a complex alliance of various gentrifying property and business interests with the help of the police and other city agencies. It's tough to conceptualize this species as a protest target-- a diverse culture of multiple significant targets. During his surveillance screed Al cited Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities, favoring individuals over city planning, as a strategy to surveil their business investments-- oops, I mean neighborhoods. This trend reveals another tactical quality of the privatization model: decentralization, here into multiple influential business interests on Polk Street-- this paradoxically is contrary to how capitalism tends to function. The extent to which City Hall influences such groups is difficult to ascertain, since LPN is not officially chartered by San Francisco, although clearly embodies the anti-poor spirit of Mayor Gavin Newsom. So, LPN itself has no single fixed target, but is a bunch of different nauseating components. Despite this, LPN's decentralization holds one notable advantage to anti-gentrification activists because it allows the opportunity to publicly reveal the threat against our lives as it truly is-- greater than Case + Abst, the Mayor or even City Hall-- the threat is capitalism.

Casciato marries this brand of free-for-all capitalism running amuck on Polk Street with military surveillance, and meeting attendees are mesmerized. Using Jacobs' do-it-yourself suggestions to craft pragmatic solutions for entrepreneurial fascism, the Captain praised sidewalk cafes. Jane Jacobs' book modeled the ideal urban space on Greenwich Village, er... I guess sidewalk cafes were prevalent there...? This is an example of crime-deterring genius, because sidewalk cafes create "eyes on the street," according to Captain Al. "Bad people don't like having eyes recording them," Al explained simply. I didn't realize that privacy was pathological. But private property has to be in the clear, since we're talking to a room full of property owners. In other words, it's okay to invade someone else's privacy to protect your own. Oh yeah that's right, that's what the cops are for! Apparently, Jacobs was also a brilliant war tactician, since Al mentioned that she advised against putting too many poor people in the same area. Captain Al diverges from this however, cautioning those "eyes on the street," to be vigilant for "that strange person [who] might be a parolee." Why does this conjure morning visions of sketched yuppies 911-ing a poor person while sipping wheat grass on the street?

Dryly, almost as if pretending to be cheerful, Captain Al offers the option for proprietors to pick up those small web cams with suction cups in lieu of expanding the police department's closed circuit grid. He loves them. "They're just about $1000," Al comforted LPN. "You can control the content of the private camera," Al added, "You can control what you want to give to the D.A.'s office."

Adventures in Liberal Fascism Pt. 8

2007-11-13T14:08:00.001-08:00

Frequently law enforcement officials field questions on the invention of more severe penalties for "quality of life" crimes. Gavin Newsom's public policy chief Julian Potter claimed during her June LPN meeting presentation on "problem-solving justice" that "the sheriff in this town has never put a person in jail for being homeless." At the November LPN meeting, Superior Court Commissioner Rob Albers claimed that "infractions are difficult to get outcomes on." Assistant District Attorney Sharon Woo at the September LPN meeting claimed that "it's easier to prosecute when members of the bench come to meetings" like LPN's. At a meeting where Police Captain of Northern Station Kevin Dillon received a certificate of special recognition from Gavin Newsom, he claimed that "sleeping on the sidewalk" is a "big problem" because the criminal justice system fails to enforce severe enough penalties. At LPN meetings, Captain Dillon frequently describes this revolving door as being a huge snafu (alongside stories that the police force is terribly understaffed)-- adding to his woes he claims that you "can't arrest people for quality of life crimes."

Only 15% of infractions get dismissed.

Jennifer Friedenbach, Executive Director of the Coalition on Homelessness, describes situations where people have had possession of aluminum cans cited as "open containers."

Adventures in Liberal Fascism Pt. 7

2007-11-13T12:40:00.000-08:00

A room full of white San Francisco professionals scowling at the black people on a street of Redhook NYC in a documentary establishing shot projected on the wall by Gavin Newsom's public policy chief Julian Potter during a presentation on "problem-solving justice" at an LPN meeting in June 2006.

To get this documentary image, personnel from the Mayor's office had to swap laptop powerpoint presentation projectors with a development agency LPN had invited to detail a proposed 130 foot tall, 107-condo (with garage and retail-- Trader Joe's was negotiating!) residential tower at 1285 Sutter, the former home of Galaxy Theatre. Marilyn Ponte of Bayrock Residential drew meeting attendees' attention to a "curved element" along the skyscrapers vertical line as seen from Hemlock Alley which the San Francisco Planning Commission had wanted.

Adventures in Liberal Fascism Pt. 6

2007-11-11T10:14:00.000-08:00

At the June LPN meeting, during a presentation on "restorative justice" by the Mayor's public policy chief Julian Potter, those who gathered in the bar and grill dining room of the Cathedral Hill Hotel were asked what they felt the "strengths of Lower Polk" were.

Architect and LPN Co-Founder Ron Case's answer was:

A) Location
B) Diversity
C) Business
D) Architecture

The answer is B.

At the November O'Reilly's Holy Grail LPN meeting, Ron complained that the residential buildings of the Tenderloin and Polk Area are 90% rent control. Ron Case was integral to LPN's expulsion of gay hustler bar Rendezvous from Polk Street, collaborating with Dan Diaz (LPV), John Molloy (Polk Merchants Association) and Myles O'Reilly (O'Reilly's) against what they felt were "bad neighbors" and "bad for the neighborhood." Ron Case also profits from his architecture firm's design of the church which was built over the space that the bar occupied.

Adventures in Liberal Fascism Pt. 5

2007-11-10T23:53:00.001-08:00

Now this blog will attempt to focus on the Captain Al Croce Casciato rant. Many of the most passionate members of LPN are only leading the specter of displacement by the nose right up to their own doorsteps. An interesting example of this was during the first happy hour LPN meeting where facilitator David Chiu's agenda got hopelessly railroaded by a very stream-of-consciousness Captain Al monologue. Bearing in mind that such a mode of expression is deeply respected around here (anyone who's read previous entries will know this to be true), figuring out how to portray Al's trip from ruminating about finding bargains on home video surveillance systems to al fresco dining to the tale of a "crazy" not-crazy homeless "not-homeless" woman is seriously a daunting task for even the most shrewd of criminal masterminds to tackle. Despite finding the agenda utterly displaced, David was able to recover some little modest corner for LPN to exist in the shadow of the police state.

We'll begin with probably the most poignant of Captain Al's classist and misogynist dream imagery, the legend of the "crazy" not-crazy, homeless "not-homeless" woman. We FADE IN on a bench in San Francisco. A sleeping figure has covered themselves with newspaper. Let's say the Chronicle. Or maybe the SF Weekly is easier to come by, although more difficult to spread out into a blanket. It's certainly way more useful as bedding than journalism. "This woman had this trash. Her belongings. She smelled," Captain Al soliloquized. "We sent her to the hospital. 5150. Amos Brown yelled at us and said if this was the Marina she wouldn't be here. We did Homeward Bound and Saturday she was back. The hospital let her go because she's not a threat to herself. She's not. [sic]" According to Captain Al, this problem continued right up until the reverend wanted to get a merchant to do a citizen arrest, when someone suggested about trying to get her in the church, "trying to get her into services." Captain Al free-associates further: "She was a boomerang. She's not homeless. She's mentally-impaired. Something tells her to collect trash and cover herself with it at night." Hmmm. Really, Captain? Could it be the cold?

"She's like a hand grenade," the Captain continued. Hey, that's not very nice, Al. Just because you might not like the way a person smells, there's no reason to suggest that they're going to spontaneously combust. Really now. "There was a murder when I became Captain across the street. One stabbed the other snapped. You have to tell them, 'John take your meds. John take a bath.'" Hmmm. Does that strike anyone as a little paternalistic? The world is truly bleak where the kindest words you'll hear in a room full of people are from a police officer.

This is just one small part of the Captain Al Casciato rant.

Adventures in Liberal Fascism Pt. 4

2007-11-10T22:37:00.000-08:00

"Do you do something about illegal pigeon feeding?"
Carolyn Abst speaking to Robert Arevalo of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, October 6th 2007, O'Reilly's Holy Grail.

Adventures in Liberal Fascism Pt. 3

2007-11-10T22:32:00.001-08:00

WARNING! IDENTITY THEFT!

There was a bit of confusion at a recent LPN meeting. In praising the city's "community justice center" idea, Superior Court Commissioner Ron Albers buoyed his claim as to the experiment's merit by mentioning to meeting attendees at O'Reilly's Holy Grail that a "homeless coalition" supports it and "is very eager" about it.

What follows is vital information on what you can do to protect yourself against identity theft. Know the difference between: 1) The Coalition on Homelessness and 2) The San Francisco Homeless Services Coalition. Don't you think it's kind of funny that there would be two groups within several blocks of each other in the Tenderloin with such similar names? I'm sure that Commissioner Albers didn't mean to confuse anyone. Why would a group that has over the years always voiced opposition to the onslaught of anti-poor programs City Hall has shat out suddenly become giddy about an experiment that would only make the connections between the police state and non-profits more devastatingly explicit?-- consider the recent spectacle of outreach workers leading the police to hidden homeless encampments.

At the LPN meeting in June of this year, Julian Potter from the Mayor's Office griped that the Coalition on Homelessness opposed the "community justice center." LPN member Dan Diaz asked her about "recalcitrant types," and she stressed that through using this new judicial system "the average person does finally break through." Albers concurred this, in describing a similar system employed at the Drug Court where he's served, "There used to be the thing that people said about leading a horse to water, and you can't make them drink... You can coerce them in a certain way to get that horse to drink that water." Now come on. Does the Coalition on Homelessness really support coercing homeless people to do anything they don't want to?

A recent article in the Guardian attacked the San Francisco Homeless Services Coalition as being a recent L.A. transplant org that's little more than a canvassing racket with a very well-compensated admin. Nobody's quite sure which "homeless coalition" Albers was referring to. It appears this was very intentional.

Jenny Friedenbach, the executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness has this to say: "We oppose a community court in the Tenderloin if it is going to include any infractions related to a person's status being homeless such as: sitting on the sidewalk, camping, open containers, urination and misdemeanors, 647's which include camping laws."

Adventures in Liberal Fascism Pt. 2

2007-11-10T21:24:00.001-08:00

"I sleep well at night when I send people to state prison because you have multiple opportunities to turn yourself around in San Francisco." This is a direct quote from San Francisco Assistant District Attorney Sharon Woo at the first happy hour LPN meeting in September.

Adventures in Liberal Fascism Pt. 1

2007-11-10T19:02:00.000-08:00

In case you cared, no the blog has not been taking a break on its updates. The horror of LPN is so overwhelming to comprehend, cope with and then describe concisely that it's taken this entire time to finally come up with a more effective editorial mechanism. What follows will be a series of snapshots from different things that have happened in the last 5 months of meetings. The idea is to keep it concise, however it is difficult to predict at the outset whether or not additional explanatory detail will be required.

On the title, admittedly it is clumsy. It could be interpreted as a conservative critique of liberals, perhaps of some imaginary situation where those with more privilege are getting saddled with the burden of sharing that privilege with those who have significantly less. To someone perhaps more familiar with the mission of this blog, it might suggest a frightful situation where liberals greatly compromise their progressive ideals. It's perhaps startling to intend to use the adjective "Liberal" to describe LPN to some, even granted the ways that Gay Shame has sought to repeatedly expose liberal hypocrisy in the past. What's happened is that LPN has shown nominal yet noticeable growth in their ability to disguise their agenda as vaguely pseudo-progressive. At this moment in San Francisco, "vaguely pseudo-progressive" is what passes as "Liberal."

Mostly though, a snappy-enough title was needed for this series of moments. Hopefully, when the series concludes we'll be all caught up, and we can continue with regular monthly updates. Okay, so let's get started.

One of the most telling moments from a recent LPN meeting was when David Chiu apologized to meeting attendees about the noise caused by the espresso machine in Cafe Yabon right in front of its owner who, after allowing his entire cafe to be completely taken over by the meeting, sat before attendees the first ever complimentary LPN meeting refreshment in 5 years of existence: homemade hummus with fresh baked bread.

In situations like this, certain things, such as the existence of a street culture created by people with little-to-no privilege in urban spaces, are simply impossible to complain about. But despite San Francisco's supposed PC heritage LPN finds a way. Meanwhile, the cafe's usual customers watch the packed-to-the-door meeting from the street as Carolyn Abst asks the person from the city attorney's office is there something that they can do to get the needle exchange that's in Hemlock Alley to move out of the neighborhood-- she's been trying for the past 8 years. Later, Captain Dillon from Northern Station notes that since sleeping on the sidewalk isn't criminalized harshly enough it's become harder to push the poor people out of sight.

Carl Faby makes us wet!

2007-10-30T12:37:00.000-07:00

Madam Fabi, at the June meeting, began by giving us a brief bio and having worked for the last twelve years at the Next Door homeless shelter (which, incidentally is adjacent to the lovely Case+Abst architecture firm) you would think that he would be an advocate for the homeless, but we would ask that you step back from the glue bottle and give us a moment of your time. Fabi, explained to the small group of [rabid] attendees that he started to attend Lower Polk Neighbor meetings over two years ago when he was concerned that the groups influence would lead to some fucked up ramifications for the shelter. Sounds good. She then proceeded to explain that after a wild rollercoaster ride with Carolynn Abst and her lapdogs, he was able to come to an understanding with the group and is now happy to be working along side them to improve the neighborhood. This would be stomach turn number one for this month’s meeting. Fabi, a resident of the neighborhood, went on to complain to the group about the inability of the pigs [“cops”] to stop the people using and selling drugs on his street and even more heated over the inaction of “certain adult bookstores that will go unnamed” to stop the “boys hustling” on the sidewalks in front of the stores. He’s in luck! The persecution and eventual eradication of street cultures is exactly what the LPN specialize in— however half-wittedly, Fabi fails to recognize that were the LPN ever successful in their delusions of conquest, he and his shelter would be next in the noose hanging from a freshly planted palm tree.

Polk Corridors Business Association Meeeting March 13, 2007 @ Space Gallery

2007-07-16T00:23:00.000-07:00

My name is Aaron. I work/live on the 1500 block of Polk Street/1400 block of Larkin.

I attended the Polk Corridor Business Association's meeting at Space Gallery on March 13, 2007. I attended this meeting because it didn't include "residents" (see flier in attached file), and I was curious as to why. This is an overall account of what I witnessed.

On entering the door I was asked to sign in. They then informed me that "Mayor Peskin" would be speaking, I asked "Mayor?" they repeated "Mayor Peskin" saying that though he was not yet mayor but they liked to refer to him as such.

I proceeded up the stairs found a seat amongst 20+ people. A man whom I believe is named "John Malloy", oversaw the meeting.

Topics covered ranged from the fear of the homeless, drugs, prostitution, minimum wage, the displacement of "john Barleycorn", lighting the sidewalks, "security cameras", amount of police officers, and car break-ins.

On the homeless Peskin spoke of Homeward Bound, and how he thinks it has worked. Another man was concerned about the legality of the "Street Sheet" vendors, and there was general concern about 'panhandling'. There was laughter at the mention of people with drug habits, and sited Medical Marijuana as contributing to the crime problem. Capt. Dillon sited a few examples of crime, none occurring in the area being addressed.

On the subject of prostitution Captain Dillon said he would like to "lock them all up", he seemed very convinced that 'locking up' people was the solution, he added the "liberal judges" are preventing this. A man who represented O'Reilly's Holy Grail/Mayes Oyster House was concerned about his ability to do business in a town where he has to pay out minimum wage to his workers.

A man representing John Barleycorn was concerned about his business being moved due to inabilty to renew lease, Supervisor Peskin said he would work on this.

Supervisor Peskin talked about potentially lighting the sidewalks at
night, and that he voted for security cameras.

Captain Dillon commented on the suggestion for more officers by basically saying no amount of police can prevent crime, he also added that the SFPD was hiring.

Those in attendance were concerned about the amount of car break-ins. Captain Dillon addressed this by saying that the break-ins were due to people leaving valuables in plain sight, adding that a fellow law man left his lap top computer on the front seat of his car.

I would like to add that this group is funded by the government and has recently obtained non-profit status (501 c 3), the city is focusing clean-up crews in this area to attract customers to these businesses how can this be. You the resident taxpayers are paying for this.

I am under the impression that this group is interested in shaping this area in their ignorant/fearful/greedy vision using money and politics, and with disregard for the residents. I for one would like to see the people of this neighborhood be allowed to take part in their community without exclusion. I welcome any comments, corrections, additions, etc.

Notes from the May 2007 LPN Meeting

2007-06-06T14:41:00.000-07:00

the tone of this entry came close to sounding ultra self-righteous, comparing Lower Polk Neighbors to organized crime based on the events of the may meeting. when the words started to form on the page i began to doubt if taking back a certain process of criminalization (a process central to LPN's mission statement) and simply reversing it was the effective action i wanted. everything that lower polk neighbors does hinges on the ability to create criminality and then project it on whoever gets in their way, it seems appropriate to interrupt this process of how a crime is determined and to look at how it is employed by people in power to obscure the centralized allocation of resources. the comparison to organized crime was furthered hammered home because of the prevalence of activity that appeared to be happening concerning bars at the last meeting-- there were so many businessmen, cops and politicians making a fuss about who can sell alcohol where, when, why and to whom that it automatically reminded me of the times of prohibition. this meeting also followed a recent experiment with having a happy hour meeting to benefit those who work when the monthly meetings are regularly scheduled. the pinnacle of this mob moment culminated with the late arrival of culture warrior entrepreneurial bar owners don alan and steven blackie.

hmmm, my description kind of already sounds too glamorous, and this is a problem for me. the media produces glamorous images of organized crime, very similar to the way lower polk neighbors perpetuates the idea of so-called "quality of life" crimes. this criminal imagery becomes an inflamed frenzy during the police reports, as members perform fiery ecstatic law-and-order outrage before captain dillon. these stories exist for captain dillon's benefit as a form of job security. i've always found glamorous images of crime can be seductive, but at the same time i worry that this glamour can be used to necessitate and validate the state, just as lower polk neighbors burns the midnight oil conspiring to combat a "criminalized" street culture.

another way to misinterpret my "organized crime" description of lower polk neighbors is that i'm describing the group as operating outside of US colonialism in some rogue capacity-- i meant the opposite: US colonialism is lower polk neighbors. in casting the entire US colonial state as "criminal," as many activists do, i run the risk of implicating another higher "anarchist state" that these oppressors exist contrary to. this causes me anxiety because the ways i've been introduced to this proposed "anarchist state" is as a vision that unfortunately overlaps the US colonial state, with both "criminalizing" the other.

an obstacle i've noticed frequently is how groups chose to respond to the state's designation of race, as anarchist groups in an attempt to repair the damage of colonialism try to create "safe" spaces. histories of how racial categories were largely devised during colonialism in order to promote its expansion are not interrogated in the process of organizing these "safe" spaces. i've heard of recent cases of campaigns seeking to combat white supremacy unable to unpack the baggage of patriarchy largely inherited through colonial conditioning-- the result is that in such "safe" spaces, queer and trans folks of color are not seen as fit to challenge white supremacy.

the arbitrary terms of what a community of color looks like becomes the subject of intense debate at lower polk neighbors meetings. at the april 2007 meeting, during captain dillon's police report lower polk neighbors criminalized individuals they were able to visually identify as "hondurans," and expressed "concern" over whether an arrest would lead to deportation. members hoped that the "hondurans" would make it to outreach organizations. in handcuffs, maybe? citizenship is a classification every lower polk neighbors member earns through paying dues and contesting the citizenship of persons not even in the meeting room. after working on this lower polk gentrification campaign for about four years now, i strongly believe that this language of citizen legitimacy also permeates the activist community. why has the work of gay shame not been successful in stimulating the interest of others in the direct action community? like lower polk neighbors, does the activist community feel assured that those seriously affected by the continuing displacement in the tenderloin can always be salvaged by the non profit industrial complex? this idea of legitimate struggles would form another wall around this proposed "anarchist state," criminalizing the most marginal.

my impulse to characterize lower polk neighbors as an organized crime syndicate was made difficult by my reaction to US citizenship being made an explicit feature of this month's may day march for immigration rights. sure i see people wanting to smash the state, but how many are documented US citizens? the paradox of citizenship privilege has anti-authoritarians waving american flags, although probably not as many as the protest last year. from what i gather the point with the american flags at these protests is to say either/both two things: 1) we're the citizens and you're not or more often 2) we're citizens just like you. i'm not clear on how to reconcile compromise and sabotage.

these are numerous examples of getting caught up in the state's terms, taking them for granted and confusing them with the terms of an anti-authoritarian agenda. often immigration activists reclaim the words "homeland security" with an illustration of male native american warriors on horseback as a anti-colonial critique. this challenge to US power implies the moral enforcement of another perhaps higher universal moral "law," to which the materialist principles of some social change activists always adhere; this blog entry struggles to avoid such implications of any form of law-and-order state, or that mary mortgages is some sort of ideal dream-scenario anarchist "citizen." it feels like during the process of connecting struggles-- as gay shame often attempts, and this blog entry also attempts-- that a consensus emerges. does this suggest some "anarchist law"?

throwing away my convenient organized crime metaphor, how do i talk about business owners using lower polk neighbors to muscle their competition? don alan owns the hemlock tavern and steve blackie owns the vertigo and lush lounge. for more details about how these former queer bars, please refer to gay shame's map of polk street gentrification. the hemlock recieved a noise complaint, but it was actually space gallery next door that had started having live music during its openings. the gallery also sold $1 sake shots, and steve blackie was upset that the alcohol proof of that sake was way more intense than most hard liquor. to make matters worse, space gallery was apparently going to apply for a permit to stay open after 2! what gives? how is it, steven moaned, that an "art gallery" can have music and sell liquor? they aren't a bar! how dare they! so now apparently the space gallery must come make peace with LPN to run their business how they want. this discussion caused some controversy amongst members of the room, because john malloy's polk corridor business association meets at space gallery. LPN has a penchant for harassing people off the street-- steven blackie as a manner of introducing himself bragged that when he bought reflections and turned it into vertigo that he "wanted to change the fabric of the neighborhood." this is consistent with blackie's track record, a very vocal transphobe, who ten years ago bought polk gulch at the corner of post and turned it into lush lounge. steve blackie brought an end to the neighborhood tradition of drag performances there, wanting the bar to cater to "metrosexuals."

also on the bar tip, people from savethebarleycorn.org paid another visit to acquire support in preventing the displacement of the john barleycorn, a 40-year old neighborhood drinking establishment at california and larkin on nob hill. three months ago i described their first ironic visit to anti-gay-bar lower polk neighbors where they shared their dilemma of having to negotiate with their new landlord luisa hansen. what's even more ironic is hearing linda refer to the barleycorn as "a community resource. we have used the same efforts we used in nob hill neighbors." oh, did i forget to mention that jeanne powell and our old friend linda were previously in nob hill neighbors? it was noted that, "as a matter of fact, [the barleycorn] keeps the neighborhood fairly safe." if one bar on nob hill can be called a community resource, what do you call the 5 recently gentrified bars on polk street that had been there for decades? the representative from the barleycorn brought a red t-shirt with him that had been printed up for the bar's river rafting trip and shook it around when he said "luisa hansen." the disparity between the amount of resources that have been piled up to save the barleycorn vs. what people could mobilize for the gay hustler bar lower polk neighbors drove out of the neighborhood is pretty immense. not that i personally prefer these tactics, but would the rendezvous have been supplanted by lofts and a church if they had the ability to do things like gather 25,000 signatures, launch a website and get willie brown to try to bring luisa to the bargaining table? lower polk neighbors unanimously pledged to support the barleycorn staying where they are. it may have been a historical moment, because i think this was the first time i ever witnessed lower polk neighbors actually voting.

of course organized crime resonated the most for me when the barleycorn mentioned hiring willie brown as a negotiator. it reminded me of the big discrimination scapegoating hullabaloo around castro bar badlands, where willie brown also stepped up to mediate between les natali and 86'd black male complainants. other businesses in the generally hostile body fascist castro district had scapegoated badlands for years as the de facto most fucked up place, and the largely non-profit pickets organized to hold badlands accountable did nothing to challenge this overwhelmingly obvious "community-wide" trend. the best part of willie brown's mediation was that after numerous headlines in local media the settlement of the mediation was kept secret. most mob-like of all is how this diversity publicity stunt has helped the careers of its organizers. a stupid controversy over the exclusion of people of color from the list of nominees for grand marshall for this year's pride parade ended with the spot being filled with anti-badlands organizer john newsome. is willie brown the godfather? oh wait, i was going to try to avoid doing that.

lastly for this month's blog entry, also contributing to the "organized crime" (for lack of a better word) feel of the meeting, so-called "sex worker advocacy" non-profit SAGE (S.tanding A.gaginst G.lobal E.xploitation) shed light through a presentation that looked like something they recycled from what they do for their funders on their very lucrative operation of working with federal agents to "rescue" (see "reverse-trafficking") immigrants in massage parlors back to their original country. that repeatedly self-applauded that they get results for all the bodies they're able to expedite, and that this has their funders jumping up and down in their seats to give them more money. yay! meeting facilitator david chiu then brought in captain dillon's police report to follow SAGE's recycled presentation on the agenda to address the general rise of hooker fervor in the room. when pumped for details regarding the SFPD's prostitution abatement strategy, captain dillon explained that, "our female cops work undercover and are extremely attractive, often more attractive than the women working the street and get more johns because we clean them up-- they're significantly cleaner." dillon also got nostalgic: "in the old days it was a lot easier. me and the boys would go out with a van and we used to throw them all in the van. if you're dressed like a prostitute, in the van." someone was upset why this ritual had been discontinued and dillon responded that,"it's a constitutional issue. if you would like to have that..." dillon trailed off suspiciously, as if to leave a gentle suggestion for concerned citizens in the room to fill in the blank.

Notes from the April LPN Meeting -- An Absurdist Play

2007-04-24T00:55:00.000-07:00

different meeting, same shit. oh, but what's this? lt. mary petrie, SFPD, enters the meeting. she's late. but it's just enough time for people to really get started. the following is an absurdist play using quotes from the meeting. the vigilant anti-hooker lieutenant sets the stage with a fantasy.. imagine this:

LT. PETRIE: The sex industry is moving into the neighborhood. alameda to contra costa county.. pimps get squeezed in oakland.. It happens every summer. $120-180 women are making. Get the children off the street, bridge and tunnel people are coming over. We're going to do a big pounding. If that is not enough to deter them...

linda: why don't you arrest these people?

LT. PETRIE: we have arrested them. you have to remember, these women have been arrested 40-50 times. and they know what to say. we're dealing with a family mentality here. pimps are the daddies, hookers are the mommies. cousins will pimp each other. this is a family structure. they protect each other. it's a community. we have a criminal justice system that doesn't deter them. drug dealers turning into pimps.. this is human trafficking...

linda: can't you do a sweep or something?

petrie: umm.. sweeps aren't exactly legal. and we can't arrest them if we don't catch them. what we can get 'em for is loitering.

jeanne: well can you do a sting? can't you have the police pull up to the curb and flash their lights to chase these hookers out of here? get those hookers to run..

dan: we need better surveillance around here. can't you set up more cameras?

lt. petrie: We can't do more surveillance, but if you wanted to... I'm not directing you to do it, but if you wanted to you could set up your own private security camera and that could deter people. Or if you can't set up a camera, how much does a sticker cost? You could put a sticker up that makes them think they're being watched.

dan: didn't they do this in the East Bay.. Can we put the john's picture on the billboard?

jeanne: call the wives and release the photos.

lt. petri: We thought about that but we thought it might hurt the john's family more than the john. we know the pimps come from the east bay. Pimps will be migrating here from las vegas and los angeles. We're working on an operation at the end of June with the federal task force on prostitution.

linda: This is quality of life issue. Why should we have to live our lives under these horrible circumstances? in the presence of prostitution.

LT PETRIE: And you know the pimp is never far. You can turn the corner and there he is. and if you see a girl that's underage.. if they're under 18 and they get into a car... call 911.. these are children. and the farther up polk street, the more expensive they are. it's just the way it is.

Notes from March LPN Meeting

2007-04-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

apologies for the late posting. gay shame has been focussing most of its energies on the AIDS eviction realtors caravan and die-in, and march 2007's lower polk neighbors meeting was quite an amazing load of steaming horse shit. another reason for the late posting was that its taken a while to figure out how to editorialize what happened at the last lower polk neighbors meeting without wanting to scream.

scream? ummm, maybe i should begin by addressing an obvious question: one of the other mary's here wonders why i still go to these meetings, since no one cares-- if caring is to be determined by measuring the amount of people taking action against lower polk neighbors. this question's been plaguing GAY SHAME's anti-gentrification campaign for the last four years-- she noted how i've stockpiled a cat-lady-like amount of scandalous information on this group. she observed this pattern where 1.) i go to one of their meetings and then 2.) return every time with some new unbelievable, traumatizing story. yet still i continue to go because, let's face it folks, by that identical unit of measurement it would appear that nobody really cares that much about anything else gay shame organizes around either. i feel that it's important that gay shame keeps tabs on the lower polk neighbors, and look for chances to agitate for empowerment here and in any situation where it's needed the most. in a lot of ways, the gentrification of polk street seems to be a done deal-- 10pm-3am starts to feel like a north beach annex for psychotic yuppies tearing carolyn abst's trees out of the sidewalk. in the worst case scenario (the worst case being if our efforts are not successful in leading to an effective intervention) i think it is still important that GAY SHAME for the record makes this violent gentrification process and its perpetrators visible-- san francisco's not very good at preserving these recent struggles. san francisco's elite appointed gavin newsom mayor on a platform that held something against people for being poor-- obviously, since we live in a capitalist society, gavin's wealth and privilege wouldn't exist if it weren't for that poverty in the first place. polk street feels like a frontline for a "cold" class war as the city is poised to quietly re-zone the tenderloin borrowing the model set by what happened with new york's time square under then mayor rudolph giuliani. (or perhaps even christopher columbus.)

thinking about giuliani and columbus, i've decided that this last lower polk neighbors meeting's signature motif was bookstores: good and bad. we're gonna start with the "good." the treasurer, poet jeanne powell, announced that three independent bookstores were closing in the area. first, in early 2006, acorn books closed its doors after 30 years. second: the woman who owned lifetime books at sacramento passed away in the hospital; according to jeanne, no prospective leaseholders had come forward to open another bookstore there. third, and rather ironically, jeanne powell was upset that rejoyce books was forced to close after a 200% rent increase. with all the tree-planting that jeanne collects donations for each month, this is exactly the sort of irreversible change she's paving the way for. struggling little charming bookstores can't afford to be in the sort of neighborhood that Lower Polk Neighbors is fighting to create.

i'm a little fuzzy on where jeanne stands on globalization. at previous meetings she would excitedly remind folks about the special Lower Polk Neighbors discount at Cala Foods. coincidentally, this cala foods is directly across the street from rejoyce books on California and Hyde. all one had to do is mention Lower Polk Neighbors at the checkout to have a whopping 10% of the sales go to the cause of gentrification. as far as globalization stances go, i might have questions about jeanne, but i think i'm pretty sure about anti-healthcare cala foods. hmm. i wonder: had rejoyce books offered a special lower polk neighbors discount, would it have helped them to afford their 200% rent increase? upon bearing the distressing news of the recent wave of bookstore closures, she urged people not to shop on Amazon. So it's okay to turn to big business for groceries, but not books? I don't think that the megacorporation that runs Cala Foods in addition to several other well-known grocery store chains-- and a few years ago successfully forged a deal with the all-too-ready-to-capitulate UFCW to fuck their union out of health care-- is hurting financially.

warning: tangential traumatizing side-note ahead:

during the police report at a previous meeting, treasurer jeanne powell expressed concern over the recent appearance on the streets of something she said had sent a shiver down her spine. apparently these were people whom she identifed as "ecuadoreans," and they had taken over the local drug trade. she said they were just mean-looking people-- she was concerned about them wandering the streets just a little too close to a nearby school. she asked captain dillon if he knew about them and captain dillon confirmed that the police were "aware of the ecuadoreans." mockingly, i raised my hand and asked if they perhaps had any ties to al qaeda. captain dillon replied that the police didn't believe they did. my sarcasm was completely lost on the room. i warned the reader about this paragraph for two reasons: one reason was because its content is likely to induce trauma. the second reason was that adding it might obscure the stated theme of "bookstores: good and bad" which i opened this entry with. over the course of writing i can see more clearly that the good/bad bookstore theme and this "equadorean" anecdote are linked by the repeated practice lower polk neighbors has of pathologizing, or more often criminalizing, difference. listening to the way jeanne talked, it felt as if she thought it was objectionable not just that they sold drugs, but also that they appeared to her to be from ecuador-- i'm unsure as to why anyone needed to know how she had chosen to locate them racially.

the point i'm trying to make is not just about jeanne powell-- i say this as i catch carolyn abst angrily doodling geodesic squares in the margins of the agenda handout. my point is that being so blinded by xenophobia has made them stupid-- so much so that they unwittingly sabotage themselves, ala rejoyce books. from going to these meetings for so long, i've realized that they're essentially stupid-- not just racist, classist and heterosexist. i make the distinction that racism, classism and heterosexism are not mere manifestations of stupidity, but coldly calculated systems of domination. i know this from watching how the police report operates during the meetings, how captain dillon relates to feverish owning-class gripes. captain dillon (sometimes referred to by the group as "our captain") helps create the myth of public consent to state terror by feeding off their irrational tree-planting capitalist morality play versus a faceless un-colonizable urban race/class/gender difference. carolynn abst's moral war with the marginalized resonates with middle american values-- she received a check for $200 from someone in the red states who read the recent Wall Street Journal article that predictably mischaracterized both her organization and gay shame's anti-gentrification campaign to gratify their readership. the state uses arrogant zealots like abst to do its own work for them, making a "trouble" neighborhood more palatable to the suburban tastes of empire. this was clear during the last meeting's discussion of transportation development happening on van ness avenue (the main street adjacent to polk)-- such a large-scale civic planning project only takes place hand-in-hand with goals to draw in big business more than willing to cop the 200% rent increase that rejoyce books couldn't. people at the meeting had numerous concerns as to the development-- it appeared that although they had so passionate a role in making the area viable through chasing out the marginal and powerless that ultimately they themselves were excluded from the city-level decisions which will have the greatest impact. let me just remind the reader that gay shame has never been pro-business-- unfortunately, places that sell alcohol or books tend to also be where some cultures happen under capitalism. these places also become targets in the culture war that lower polk neighbors is waging against the marginal and different, and finally against themselves. lower polk neighbors' moral unwillingness to accept difference and the innate connections between both "good" and "bad" bookstores is what will be its own eventual undoing.

wait, what other bookstore? when was i going to mention the "bad" bookstore? let me return to the aforementioned signature motif-- those at the meeting spoke ill of the new gay adult bookstore, polk gulch, which was mentioned in the previous blog entry. up until a certain inopportune power outage, the polk gulch was a "straight" adult bookstore called the lockerroom. the new rainbow flagged bondage awning says "polk gulch" in big letters, making an interesting contrast to john molloy's "polk money district" streetpost banners. the lockerroom was in an apartment building that recently made the papers because of a suspicious power outage fiasco involving the building's management company, asia inc. the "polk gulch" is in this building right across the street from carolyn abst and ron case's architecture firm, case/abst: this meeting people spoke about talking to the city attorney about polk gulch. they claimed that families in the apartment building were complaining about the presence of this new bookstore-- the families in the building didn't have a problem with the old one?

people at the meeting spoke of having "quality of life" issues with the bookstore (this language reminds me of new york under giuliani, and i gasped at their audacity of invoking such a legacy publically)-- it's always code for increased police presence, evictions and big business = gentrification. despite knowing better, i'm taken aback by how brazen this group is, especially since the only obvious difference from the previous adult bookstore was that this one is gay. it is only because of the assimilationist apathy of san francisco's mainstream gay community that lower polk neighbors was successful in bullying the last gay hustler bar (the rendezvous) out of the neighborhood about two and half years ago. is the neighborhood much better now that it has become a clone of violent straightboy stomping ground north beach? carolynn's $200 red state check would confirm that polk street has been sufficiently colonized to meet total suburban accommodation. lower polk neighbors continues the american tradition of crude and careerist owning-class gentrification gangsters in the manifest destiny vein of giuliani and columbus, righteously preying upon the most vulnerable and different, scared of any unfamiliar street culture that may interfere with their tacky and uninspired business goals.

Notes from February LPN Meeting

2007-02-27T22:31:00.000-08:00

This meeting was very stressful. Actually, every meeting is stressful. A woman named Linda had a breakdown during the police report, and though she requested that her comments be stricken from the meeting's minutes, i found what she said too important to ignore-- and besides, this is not the minutes.

She spoke mostly about issues concerning the elderly: she said that people in her building get assaulted ("the women in my building get beaten") and that the police don't help. A lot of what she said became unclear-- one thing she talked about felt similar to something she'd said a while back about the police assisting a corrupt landlord in an eviction in her building-- her point was that was the one time she'd ever seen them.

The most depressing were two direct quotes, and I'm mentioning them to illustrate the complex issues behind what appears to be driving Lower Polk Neighbors as a whole: regarding the police officers doing their job of ridding the undesirables from the neighborhood, "it's not like we expect you to shoot them, we expect them to act like men," and "conflict resolution doesn't work on sociopaths." Linda doesn't own any businesses in the neighborhood, or have any big real estate investments, yet she seems to be ardently committed to the goals of the group.

After the outburst, in a bit of nice PR, Captain Dillon offered to speak with Linda. I managed to pry her away from him and to get some information about some weird gay architecture appreciation thing. What is also depressing is the apparent desperation people have for participating in these types of overtly gentrification-minded neighborhood groups, and realizing, or not-realizing, or choosing to not realize that everything they're doing puts them next on the list for removal. Linda appears to be a long time resident, and probably has some rent control where she lives. San Francisco loves to evict elderly rent-control tenants. They're always the first to go.

I got on Captain Dillon's case during the police report since every month he mentions a shooting that happens all the way across town-- this time it was something about some homicide in the Haight. These meetings are about Polk Street. For someone who isn't paying attention, and doesn't know that Captain Dillon is from Northern Station, and that Northern Station covers a large amount of area outside of the Polk Street neighborhood, they'll think that homicides happened in the neighborhood. The Lower Polk Neighbors needs this sort of crime hysteria in order to justify their gentrification campaign. I didn't give Dillon the full read, but made a proposal (i've never heard anyone use consensus process at the meetings, and appreciated the absurdity of going there with it) that Captain Dillon's crime report be limited to the neighborhood.

Something else that was really cute on the sly was something that Architect Diva Carolyn Abst and Captain Dillon exchanged in semi-sotto in front of the whole group about the liquor store on Post and Polk. This is a big one, and it was cute how the Abst-Dillon exchange went, mostly unnoticed by half the room. They mentioned the liquor store by address alone. The liquor store is located on what is probably the last battlefield for Lower Polk Neighbors vs. Street Culture. This corner used to be part of the hustler block, but then something changed and it became more of a drug block. People congregated in front of the liquor store always-- on Post two doors down is the last tranny bar Divas. The liquor is right next to an adult bookstore, the Lockerroom.

About 2-3 months ago, something wacky happened on this block. The apartment building that the liquor store was on the ground floor of lost all its power. Apparently this is due to the negligence of the property owner. Allegedly, because of this, the liquor store was boarded up. The Lockerroom was also shuttered. It's also important to notice that all this is directly across the street from Carolyn Abst's office. Though the entire building was dark, and PGE had begun tearing up the sidewalk, the cigarette store on the alley still seemed to have electricity and was open for business. It's all very suspicious. I have friends who have stayed in that building who said that trannies turned tricks there, but I've never been inside myself. It feels like a very convenient land grab. At last month's Lower Polk Neighbors meeting, they mentioned that the building's management company had to relocate everyone living there to hotels temporarily-- I assumed that this effectively meant they were evicted. It's a big local news story now-- when I went by there I saw someone who I took to be a resident coming out of the building, and the sidewalk had been all sewed back up. The strangest thing was that the Lockerroom was now the Polk Gulch-- an annexation by the company that owns Folsom Gulch, with a big rainbow flag on their awning. I couldn't figure out if they were in opposition to or awkward alliance with the new lovely sterile lamp post banners that say "Polk Business District."

The cute Abst-Dillon love banter was quite terse: "I hope it stays closed," "Yeah we hope it stays closed too." HOW SWEET!! GO TEAM! This is what Lower Polk Neighbors does best-- it gives us pure, shameless hatred of the most vulnerable from only the most respected members of society. It's such moments that keep me coming to meetings. It's the same self-righteous hatred of the poor that got Gavin Newsom elected, and it's just as ironic. Gavin targeted people's General Assistance checks for insane reductions on the grounds that poor people just buy drugs with them-- Gavin owns wineries and a recent scandal found him copping to alcoholism. Aw. Rich people buy drugs too, they just don't get arrested for it. Similarly, Carolyn and her cop buddy want to target a liquor store, but at the same time Myles O'Reilly, who owns two pubs (you know, one of them that he opened on Polk cost $6 million), is a Lower Polk Neighbors member.

And similarly, with further irony (this was the coup de grace that opened the meeting), three representatives from John Barley Corn Pub came asking Lower Polk Neighbors to support their campaign to keep their bar open-- heart pounding in my chest, I got really brave and asked them if they felt it was a little weird coming to asking this group for help, since Lower Polk Neighbors has done more to remove local bars from the neighborhood-- Rendezvous, The Giraffe, Reflections. I pointed the only apparent difference between these bars and the Barley Corn is that they were queer. Carolyn Abst who was sitting across from me went "Pfft!" haughtily when she heard that one.