Tag Archives: Coercion

Business Improvement Districts, Historical and Theoretical Perspectives, Hypocrisy

BIDs Benefit Immensely From Coercive Collection Of Mandatory Assessments And Complain Incessantly About Being Subject To The California Public Records Act. They Can’t Have One Without The Other, Yet Both Are Voluntary, So Why Don’t They Grow Up And Quit Whining About The Consequences Of Their Choices?

Leave a comment

A business improvement district (BID) in Los Angeles1 is a geographical area in which the owners of commercial property are assessed an additional fee for various services that aren’t provided by the City. These fees are collected either by the City of L.A. via direct billing2 or, more usually, by the County of Los Angeles as an add-on to property tax bills.

The state law authorizing BIDs requires each BID to be administered by a property owners’ association (POA).3 In the normal course of things these organizations are conjured up by the City at the time the BID is established, although sometimes previously existing nonprofits will end up as a POA. One example of this is the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which serves as POA for the East Hollywood BID, although it predates its existence.

The law requires these POAs to be nonprofits, although it doesn’t specify what kind of nonprofit they should be. For various reasons, at least in Los Angeles, they are usually 501(c)(6) organizations. Because the City is handing over what’s essentially tax money to these POAs,4 they have a great deal of control over their activities and what they spend their money on.
Continue reading BIDs Benefit Immensely From Coercive Collection Of Mandatory Assessments And Complain Incessantly About Being Subject To The California Public Records Act. They Can’t Have One Without The Other, Yet Both Are Voluntary, So Why Don’t They Grow Up And Quit Whining About The Consequences Of Their Choices? →

Share
Hollywood BID Patrol

BID Patrol Directive Orders Unconstitutional Coercion of Hollywood Homeless for Sake of Social Cleansing

Leave a comment
Donuts: The fuel of terrorism. BID Patrol Officers in Vine Street Winchell's taking a break from strongarming the homeless into leaving the streets of Hollywood.
Donuts: The fuel of terrorism. BID Patrol Officers in Vine Street Winchell’s taking a break from strongarming the homeless into leaving the streets of Hollywood.
Amongst the emails between Andrews International Security and the HPOA recently obtained by our correspondent, we find a document entitled ANDREWS INTERNATIONAL BID HOMELESS PERSON DIRECTIVE. You can download a copy here or find an embedded copy after the break. There is much of interest in this document, but today we’re looking at the following bit:


If a BID Officer observes a person who, because of their homelessness commits one of the following misdemeanors:

  1. Obstructing passage on sidewalks
  2. Living or sleeping in a vehicle
  3. Loitering in a restroom
  4. Littering
  5. Use of facilities, e.g., sleeping on a bus bench for other than intended purpose
  6. Public nudity as is necessary to carry on the daily necessities of life
  7. Building a structure in a park or public right-of-way
  8. Trespass on or in public or private property

The Officer may offer such individual(s) the option of going to an available shelter in the surrounding Hollywood community as an alternative to arrest. If the homeless person accepts the offer of assistance, no arrest shall take place and arrangements shall be made to transport the homeless person to the shelter.

This was legal in 1942 and, by God, it's legal now.
This was legal in 1942 and, by God, it’s legal now.
Pass over the dyslexic parrot-like legalese. Pass over the semiliterate, unparseable sentences. Pass over the absolutely unintelligible yet still horrific phrase “sleeping on a bus bench for other than intended purpose.” Consider for now just the fact that in June 2014, five months before the date on this document, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found LA’s law against sleeping in vehicles to be unconstitutional.

So Andrews International Security, with the full knowledge and consent of the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, has directed its officers to give homeless people sleeping in their cars a choice between arrest or coerced relocation to a homeless shelter. This, despite the fact that common sense, human decency, and the goddamned Ninth Circuit all agree that people have a constitutional right to sleep in their cars, whether or not it’s “because of their homelessness.”
Continue reading BID Patrol Directive Orders Unconstitutional Coercion of Hollywood Homeless for Sake of Social Cleansing →

Share