Keep The Vacant Store Vacant! -- Demand By Anti-Gentrification Activists In Boyle Heights
I was struck by both the racism and the idiocy of protesters in Boyle Heights, a neighborhood in Los Angeles where a new coffee house is seeing some protests.
Steve Lopez writes in the LA Times of the smashing in of the door of this new coffee house:
What drew me there was a story by my colleague Ruben Vives about the Boyle Heights anti-gentrification activists who have targeted Weird Wave Coffee, just as they've targeted art galleries that have moved into the area.
Protesters, calling for a boycott of Weird Wave, flashed signs with "[blank] White Coffee" and "AmeriKKKano to go." On Wednesday, surveillance video showed someone in a black mask smashing the front door window....As everyone knows, Los Angeles is always changing, and has been for the last few hundred years. Before Boyle Heights was predominantly Latino, it was home to people of Jewish, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, Croatian and Serbian descent.
Echo Park, Highland Park and the Arts District have been transformed, too. Displacement is real, with rising rents forcing mass movements of people across the city in a money-driven game of winners and losers, and I've written about that many times.
But you can't easily reverse the phenomenon, or have any real impact with a race-based rant against a small independent coffee shop that moves into a vacant storefront and is embraced -- as far as I could tell -- by merchants and neighbors.
Yes, that's right. Per protesters, better that that store remains vacant than that a business opens up there, if that business is owned (in part) by white people.
One of the three owners of Weird Waves is Latino. Mario Chavarria was born in El Salvador. He owns and lives in a West Adams building where two tenants -- Jackson Defa and John Schwarz -- came to him with their coffee shop idea, and he put up the money to back them. They searched the entire city before finding a spot they liked."We have a five-year lease, so we've got to keep going for at least that long," said Chavarria. "For whatever hate comes our way, there's 10 times more support from the community."
He said he tried to speak to protesters but didn't get anywhere with them.
"They don't like to engage," he said. "They just like to hate."
The other ridiculous aspect of this dispute is that Boyle Heights has a Starbucks, and the activists don't seem to have a problem with it. Is there a more obvious symbol of outsider corporate establishment big-footing its way into neighborhoods, driving up rents and changing the local vibe?
When Christine Fimbres saw the story on the broken window at Weird Wave she drove straight to the coffee shop from her home in East L.A., marched up to the counter and ordered a brew.
If I lived there, I'd do the same.
Oh, and a note: If you have to do your activism wearing a mask to hide your identity, chances are, you're doing something ugly and unethical.
The protesters aren't paying for the property or the taxes.
MarkD at July 26, 2017 7:12 AM
They're not attacking the Starbucks because that's where their base of operations is located.
Sixclaws at July 26, 2017 8:24 AM
Let's see. A vacant storefront attracts drug dealers, winos, and the homeless. A quirky coffee shop attracts hipsters. Tough call.
With a taco stand and a coffee shop on the same corner, you've got the beginnings of a restaurant mecca, an attraction for foot traffic that will shop at other stores in the area. And having shops and stores in the area means commerce and can mean jobs.
Once the little mom-and-pop local stores prove the economic viability of an area, the bigger ones will move in, bringing more jobs and more traffic. But if the little shops are driven out, the big ones will avoid the area, creating more vacant store fronts and widening the economic desert.
On the other hand, if you're paying Section 8 level rent and the area gentrifies, you can find yourself priced out of an apartment it probably took you a while to find. So, I can understand the concerns of those residents.
That said, I wonder how many of those protestors live in the area and are actually affected by the gentrification; and how many are merely rabble rousers stirring up trouble.
Conan the Grammarian at July 26, 2017 9:32 AM
A business pays rent so the building doesn't deteriorate and look like Detroit. It hires people who are likely to be local. Yes, rents go up if an area is prospering. You want the lowest possible rents? Check out detroit, houses can be had for $15,000 or less. But you can't buy it if you live there because you don't have a job. These two things go together: jobs and people wanting to live near the jobs which makes rents go up. Want to live in the Chicago Loop and pay $500/month rent? Too bad, that isn't how it works.
In ancient times, urban renewal usually happened via catastrophic fire. Rome burned down several times. I think gentrification is better.
I also find it interesting in this story that it was the hispanic guy who put up the money.
cc at July 26, 2017 10:39 AM
What do we want?
An Empty Store Front or a Bodega with a sparse inventory that sells dime bags.
When do we want it?
Now!
Hey Hey, Ho Ho. Hispster Dueshe Bag Coffee guys have go to go. Hey Hey, Ho Ho half caf soy lattes have go to go.
Shtetl G at July 26, 2017 2:01 PM
"If you have to do your activism wearing a mask to hide your identity, chances are, you're doing something ugly and unethical."
They wear masks because they aren't activists. They're Gestapo. The time to really fear is when they take the masks off. That happens when they are convinced that they have won.
Also: Gentrification is a good reason to own rather than rent. If you own, and gentrification arrives in your neighborhood, you just hit the lottery. Talked to a guy in New York a few years ago. His uncle had just sold his row house in the Bronx, near Columbia. Made out like a bandit. Bought himself a nice house in Staten Island and had some left over.
Cousin Dave at July 26, 2017 2:22 PM
Crab buckets.
iowaan at July 27, 2017 8:17 AM
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