Third World Bazaar | Michael Kohlhaas dot org

I’ve been covering the dishonest, fever-pitched, chainsaw-screech opposition of the business improvement districts of Los Angeles to this City’s miraculous, one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable street vendors since the Spring of 2015. And they will lie, they will pay their minions to lie, they will whine, and so on. And the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce is no better. E.g. its so-called CEO, Leron Gubler, recently wrote a racist screed to the LA City Council claiming that the value of Hollywood Boulevard as a world-class tourist attraction was being depleted due to too many “third world bazaar” type people selling yummy food on the sidewalks.¹

And, as you no doubt know, all of this nonsense had the effect of dragging out the City’s attempts at legalizing vending for years, leading State Senator Ricardo Lara to introduce a bill forbidding cities in California from banning vending. This was signed into law by Jerry Brown in September and immediately moved the Los Angeles street vending debate into a different dimension. Lara’s bill prohibits restricting vending on the basis of anything other than objective health, welfare, and safety concerns. And the City is working on a regulatory system that putatively complies with these new limitations.

So the BIDdies have retrenched, given up on banning vendors in most parts of the City, and, in a bizarre Satanic inversion of Jesus’s cleansing of the temple, are concentrating on keeping a very few of their high and holy places, like Hollywood Boulevard, safe for the moneychangers by preventing infestations of the wrong kind of people selling cheap and yummy food² in a “third world bazaar” type atmosphere. This is as opposed to the expensive and crappy food that the BIDdies prefer to be sold to tourists in Hollywood.³

And to do this, of course, they’re now required to argue that they’re motivated solely by objective health, welfare, and safety concerns rather than the real reasons, chief among which is their unhinged racism. Which brings us to November 27, 2018, when Leron Gubler submitted yet another letter to the Council File, accompanied by some photos supplied by the Hollywood Property Owners’ Alliance, pushing the theory that vending on Hollywood Boulevard is unhealthy, unsafe, and contributes to illfare,⁴ and so should be banned.
Continue reading Lying Zillionaires Lie About Street Food In Hollywood — Hollywood Property Owners’ Alliance And Hollywood Chamber Of Commerce Submit Doctored Anti-Vendor Photos And Mendacious Letter To City Council — Oppose Street Food Because Hotdoguero Putatively Under The Influence Of Marijuana While Cooking — As If The Kitchens Of Every Ritzy Restaurant On The Boulevard Weren’t Hotbeds Of Cocaine Abuse, Rape, And Sadistic Brutality — The Three Central Back Of The House Traditions Of The Fine Dining Industry →

ACTION NOTE: Carol Schatz told us that City Council was going to be taking up street vending again soon, and she was correct. It’s scheduled for the Economic Development Committee on April 16 at 2 p.m. in City Hall room 340, which is the Ferraro Council Chamber. Obviously they’re expecting a crowd.

Business Improvement Districts and other white supremacist zillionaire flunkies like various chambers of commerce and the Central City Association have spent the last three years fighting against legalized street vending in Los Angeles because they’re a bunch of puritanical racists. Ordinarily, though, they have the sense to hide their puritanical racism behind a thin screen of concern for slightly more acceptable issues like civic order, the rule of law, public health, whatever.

However, a couple days ago, Leron Gubler of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce let the mask slip just for a moment. He sent this letter, a transcription of which is after the break, to City Council to oppose legalizing street vending.⁵ And in it he stated:

The Chamber and the Hollywood Entertainment District BID continue to be inundated with complaints from our property owners and visitors on Hollywood Boulevard about the increase in sidewalk vendors over the past year. The street, especially at night, is being compared to a third world bazaar.

It’s not even a dog whistle. He’s explicitly complaining that there are too many unruly darkies on Hollywood Blvd., because who else is found in a “third world bazaar”? These people⁶ don’t seem to have the first clue that they don’t own Hollywood Blvd., they don’t own this City. And this is not the first time they’ve complained about nonwhite people taking over Hollywood Blvd.

Their visions for Hollywood Blvd., for Los Angeles, are no more important or valid than anyone else’s, no matter what the color of their skin or whether or not they have a zillion bucks in the bank. Most of Los Angeles likes street vending. Most of Los Angeles likes unruly darkies. We are unruly darkies here. Without unruly darkies there would be no Los Angeles. Our City would be just like freaking Hancock Park or San Marino. Most of Los Angeles likes what vending does for our streets, our neighborhoods, our humanity. If these BIDdies don’t like it, why don’t they move back to America or Palos Verdes or wherever they came from?
Continue reading Leron Gubler Of The Hollywood Chamber Of Commerce Wrote To The City Council To Tell Them That Legal Street Vending Is Causing Hollywood Boulevard To Be “Compared To A Third World Bazaar” — And Because He’s A Racist Fucking Moron He Takes It For Granted That That’s A Bad Thing →