The Anarchist Cookbook apparently does NOT include pizza recipes.
This anti-gentrification anti-capitalist anti-whatever buzzword movement that began with the Pidgin protests took a strange turn this week when a group targeted Famoso Neapolitan Pizzeria on Commercial Drive and another group, or possibly the same people, stole the butcher sign from Save-On-Meats. (Full Disclosure: I work for Save-On-Meats.)
What?
The justification for the Pidgin protests, as sociology undergrad-y as they were, at least had some merit of debate. The restaurant was new, it was a bit jarring on arrival, and it represented a change to the neighbourhood. Whether it was good change, bad change or irrelevant was certainly a conversation worth having.
But this, this is just perplexing.
The press release following the attack on Famoso, because smash-the-state anarchists are soooo about press releases, states the “yuppies” have been peacefully going about their “gourmet dinners” and “flaunting their wealth” with their “lucky condos” and “expensive cars”.
I too remember the first time I read No Logo and listened to Radiohead.
The release also mentions smashing City of Vancouver trucks because council “promotes gentrification” with their Grandview-Woodland community plan, which is a completely constructive way to start a dialogue and not the worst and most juvenile way to go about it.
Commercial Drive as the last line of gentrification? The road littered with coffee shops and pizza places? They’re drawing a line in the sand well past where the tide has already covered.
It’s confusing because Commercial is neither poor nor rich enough to justify being targeted. They must just live near there I guess and one time got some bad pizza or something.
Otherwise, I’m lost as to what they’re trying to achieve. Are they to believe that running Famoso out of that spot won’t just result in another food service business filling the space?
As for the Save-On-Meats sign steal, well….
Oh DUDE, you totally just stole a sign bro. Swag!
If Famoso was a perplexing target, Save-On-Meats is even more so. This is the business with the biggest social activist footprint in the Downtown Eastside. As an employee I’m not going to name names but there are TONS of businesses within a two-block radius of the SOM building that do less and charge more.
Are the homeless sick of breakfast sandwiches right now? Probably. Is mac and cheese the healthiest food? Of course not, but it sticks to your bones when you have no idea when your next meal is.
It highlights the nebulous 100% ideal way or the highway approach to this back-swell. I mean, read this article where other businesses in the area have given up on hiring community residents and yet SOM keeps trucking and giving people a chance. If not for SOM, who knows what the building is right now, or where DTES meal programs are being conducted. Let’s develop the Downtown Eastside together, unless somehow abandonment and decay is preferable.
I don’t get it. This is real incremental progress and it’s been demonized because it doesn’t cover everything on the anarchist wishlist. They need to bring something to the table that’s more than buzzwords to counter the real and concrete good being done. Is it perfect? No, but show me anything in this world that is. It really doesn’t mean that we should stop trying and give up entirely.
You can see it in the AGF squad where it laments that Pidgin is being applauded for hiring a single resident as a “wage-slave”. I know that resident they’re talking about, and he loves the fact that he’s making money, has something to do with his life, and could not speak higher of Grossetti and Pidgin. Isn’t that textbook marginalization when you claim to speak for someone’s well-being to advance your own agenda? Is Mikey supposed to turn down a dishwashing job in the hope that one day the government might raise the welfare rate to the equivalent salary of a dishwasher?
We can create a conversation about what to do with this next generation of the Downtown Eastside. In fact, we should. But petty vandalism isn’t going to solve anything. We’re better than that, right?
There is a way for business to help the Eastside, if done correctly, and those who are trying should be given a chance rather than immediately demonized for doing so. Advocating for the closure of restaurants won’t turn those spaces into social housing, rather it will turn those spaces towards condos. Again, I just don’t understand what they want.
The City of Glass 
Mike the dishwasher was formerly a binner, digging through dumpsters containing broken glass and little bags of hipster’s dogshit. I’d say that holding a steady job is a step up in the world. He’s been talking of renting an apartment near the PNE. These idiots would have ruined his chance to get out of that neighbourhood.