US Portland, Oregon Megathread - Tales from The Rose City

Didn't see much of a thread regarding all the fine antics of Portland and the people who live there, so I thought to make one.

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Lesbian bar shuts down one week after opening because they weren't woke enough​



Doc Marie’s is a lesbian bar that opened on July 1st of this year with the hope of bringing more inclusivity to the city of Portland. But just one week after their grand opening they were forced to shut down because of complaints that the bar was not a “safe space.” Similar to the story I wrote a few weeks ago about the queer-owned cafe in Philadelphia that was shut down by employees for not being woke enough, Doc Marie’s was cannibalized by the woke mob.

The crowd on opening day was huge. One woman said that the line for entry on opening night was “wrapped around the block” with “literally 200 lesbians” waiting to get in.


But the excitement about a new progressive hangout dissipated quickly. Within days, Doc Marie’s found itself on the receiving end of accusations of not being inclusive enough for trans people and people of color. Despite mask mandates being lifted in Portland, patrons accused the bar of not implementing enough COVID safety measures. Patrons also claimed that Doc Marie’s had “culturally appropriative art” on the walls.
One TikToker, who says she attended the grand opening, breaks down the accusations against the bar:


Employees of Doc Marie’s created an Instagram page to echo these concerns. They claimed that the owners weren’t proactive enough in creating a safe space and accused the owners of racism. The employees also demanded that the bar host “free opportunities for education” for the community.

Eventually, the employees demanded the owners relinquish ownership of the bar and hand the business to them. The owners were given a “24-hour deadline” to adhere to the ludicrous demands.

Just five days after opening, the bar announced on July 6th that they had to close temporarily in order to address the cries from the woke mob for a “safe and inclusive space.”

Surrendering to the woke mob doesn’t appear to be working out in Doc Marie’s favor, as the bar remains closed with no public plan to reopen.




 
Is Portland really that bad of a place to live? I've seen right-wing people on the internet claim it was a cesspool of drug-addicted, homeless people.
There are far, far more dangerous and hellish cities to live in in America but Portland is a city in massive decline. Record homicide rates, soaring rent and house prices, a rampant homeless issue that is in nearly every single corner of the city and some of the most fart huffing smug people you will ever meet are just a few of it's issues. Would you pay 600k for a home where homeless drug addicts shit on your lawn? This happens daily.
 
Yes. The only remotely nice part of Portland I visited was a suburban neighborhood near an elementary school which was full of limousine liberals so the people there actually kept it clean and not full of weeds, boarded up windows, and graffiti. Unfortunately it was like 4-5 blocks away from a place where I stopped to get gas and saw a bald guy walk out of there with his whole head covered in tattoos and looked like a tweaker. Also visited a guy who had a pretty nice apartment there. Right outside was a hobo drinking, another one passed out, and one of the few blacks I saw there (she was a prostitute who started rambling about weird shit to my friend).

I strongly suggest a visit. It's one thing reading articles like this but an entirely different thing actually seeing it in person. If you've ever wanted to go to Eastern Europe, just visit Portland instead.

I'd compare Portland to a giant trailer park. The people there give off a really unpleasant vibe that's the exact same I get when I'm around trailer parks.
You pretty much nailed it with the trailer park comparison.

Portland nowadays is like living in that Harmony Korine movie Gummo. Not so much hillbilly but people here are very off in a way that does make you uncomfortable
 
In recent Portland news:
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You work for a fucking bookstore, it's an entry level job that should be paid shit so you go get a real job. Your highest risk, being in Portland, is someone shitting in the store.


Then get another job, book jockeys. Go work at the public library and tard wrangle homeless.
This is how I know you've never been to Powell's.

Imagine the worst traits of Ikea employees and hipster indie record store employees and combine them into a genderblob that smells offensive.
But without them, who will do the hard work of writing review placards for terrible woke bullshit? How will I know what to buy????1
 
Google Street View doesn't have many images of downtown Portland post-2019 (I wonder why?) but I have decided to attach a couple of images to show how quickly the city has visibly turned into garbage in the span of just a few years. You can go to these intersections and observe other signs of decay.

2023-04-28 21_30_55-121 SE Salmon St - Google Maps - Brave.png

2023-04-28 21_31_13-100 SE Salmon St - Google Maps - Brave.png


2023-04-28 21_23_12-901 SW 10th Ave - Google Maps - Brave.png

2023-04-28 22_21_11-1001 SW Taylor St - Google Maps - Brave.png
 
Soul crushing music probably not included.




DB4FFFBC-C064-43D4-8D62-8BE301B09AAF.jpeg

 
Soul crushing music probably not included.




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"Yeah, well ACAB, they would say that because they're all phobic bigots"

The general schizophrenia around policing in the city is pretty funny. The police union is allegedly very evil, and all the cops are bad people who live outside the city, and got mad people asked for accountability in 2020 so to get their revenge they've been policing to a bare minimum and letting petty crime skyrocket. From this argument, it seems to logically follow that replacing the entire police force with Good Cops (tm) will cause the city to be safe again but also no criminals to be hassled or profiled by PPB.

But also, the incarceral complex is inherently evil and so is the institute of policing, and so we need to abolish any sort of police force and replace them with social workers who will peacefully resolve issues. It's how they do it in Europe or whatever, and there are no murders there.

Also also, of course the community will help keep its own peace, but guns are evil tools of murder and should be banned. It is unclear who would enforce this, with no arm of the state to do so with sanctioned violence.

These all sound like theoretical musings on a nice society we might work towards, and that would be a very polite way to try to frame the arguments of these insufferable wokesters. But no, they get screeched alongside criticisms of current government, and defended with the usual "oh, so you're fine with the cops gunning down black and brown bodies?", and suddenly YOU'RE the bad guy if you say "depends, are they carjacking people and starting fires?"

Whatever, remind me to pick up another box of ammo in case I need to do any community policing. (And no, to anyone reading this concerned about that statement, I have no intentions of committing any crimes, and am instead concerned for my own safety in my home, and the poor response times of the police to even the most urgent of violent crimes in progress)
 
Is Portland really that bad of a place to live? I've seen right-wing people on the internet claim it was a cesspool of drug-addicted, homeless people.

Yes, Downton Portland smells, looks like shit, and is infested with insane durg addicted homeless who shit everywhere and stink. This was in 2018 mind you, it's gotten so much worse.

R/portland is torn up about this, with many voicing that things have gone too far.

Sounds positive until you read a thread like this where the residents are still crying about how the mean booly cops teargassed them when they were just peacefully lighting fires and destroying statues and you realize majority of them still haven't learned a single thing.
Ugh, had to back out of that thread fast before I said a "in Minecraft".
 
Ugh, had to back out of that thread fast before I said a "in Minecraft".
I legitimately cannot read /r/portland without getting furious. I have to click off everytime. You see people who are educated and should know better advocating for the death of their own city and they don't even know it. The level of delusion on that sub is incredible. I remember there being a thread about the PPB response time and they claimed proud boys (Why is it always proud boys with them?) had infiltrated the police force and that's why cops weren't showing up to crime scenes anymore. As in the proud boy cops in response to the calling of defunding were doing it out of spite because they hate progressive Portlandians.
 
This is not Portland but another county in the state. They got a $1 million grant to work on homelessness. So they hired a consultant, and just like Portland that money is going to accomplish absolutely nothing.

View attachment 5107183
Wonder how much could be accomplished if the homeless program is just offering bounties on homeless menaces to society. Like some sort of old scalping thing in the days of Native Americans.


I legitimately cannot read /r/portland without getting furious. I have to click off everytime. You see people who are educated and should know better advocating for the death of their own city and they don't even know it. The level of delusion on that sub is incredible. I remember there being a thread about the PPB response time and they claimed proud boys (Why is it always proud boys with them?) had infiltrated the police force and that's why cops weren't showing up to crime scenes anymore. As in the proud boy cops in response to the calling of defunding were doing it out of spite because they hate progressive Portlandians.
TBH, if Proud Boys made up the force to let the city go to absolute shit in order to be able to actually do their jobs because things like deadly force and tear gas are the ONLY options, that'd be pretty interesting to see. Also, I'm interested to see if there'll ever be a liberal city that sees a #BlueFlu that'll stick, or if we'll just see continued resignations and retirements. Not like cops can just go on strike.
 
I legitimately cannot read /r/portland without getting furious. I have to click off everytime. You see people who are educated and should know better advocating for the death of their own city and they don't even know it. The level of delusion on that sub is incredible. I remember there being a thread about the PPB response time and they claimed proud boys (Why is it always proud boys with them?) had infiltrated the police force and that's why cops weren't showing up to crime scenes anymore. As in the proud boy cops in response to the calling of defunding were doing it out of spite because they hate progressive Portlandians.
Even if the "cops aren't doing their jobs out of spite" were true, who would blame them? The entire city basically told them they fucking hate them and they didn't want them to do their jobs. Every time I point this out on the sub I get a bunch of hand wringing and downvotes with no real explanation. If I were a cop in this city I wouldn't really want to do anything for these retards either.

I have seen them argue that we need an entire new police force and start from scratch. Literally like you can just snap your fingers and create a new police force overnight, no training (except of course diversity training) or anything needed. It's just easy to totally start over apparently. Absolutely delusional.
 
This is not Portland but another county in the state. They got a $1 million grant to work on homelessness. So they hired a consultant, and just like Portland that money is going to accomplish absolutely nothing.

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I understand why corporations hire consultants (it's to cover their own asses when making hard decisions because corporate middle-management are all cowards), but I really struggle to understand why local governments hire them on relatively straightforward issues like this one. Are they just unable or unwilling to think for themselves, experiment, iterate, and problem-solve independently?
 
I understand why corporations hire consultants (it's to cover their own asses when making hard decisions because corporate middle-management are all cowards), but I really struggle to understand why local governments hire them on relatively straightforward issues like this one. Are they just unable or unwilling to think for themselves, experiment, iterate, and problem-solve independently?
Consulting firms contribute to PACs, that contribute to politicians, so a percentage of that public money that you are disbursing will make its way back to your own pockets.

It's also a way to "do something about the problem" without the icky realities of doing something about the problem.
 
Google Street View doesn't have many images of downtown Portland post-2019 (I wonder why?) but I have decided to attach a couple of images to show how quickly the city has visibly turned into garbage in the span of just a few years. You can go to these intersections and observe other signs of decay.
People here may not believe it, but Portland was a genuinely clean, nice-looking city up through 2013-ish, and even after that up until the lockdowns the homelessness and decay weren't nearly so precipitous.

In other news, the Sec. of State has resigned over getting caught with a $10k/mo "consulting" gig with a sketchy pot dispensary chain that she was involved in overseeing, and the "right to rest" bill died in committee.
 
People here may not believe it, but Portland was a genuinely clean, nice-looking city up through 2013-ish, and even after that up until the lockdowns the homelessness and decay weren't nearly so precipitous.

Well, urban decay is like a termite infestation. By the time you see the damage, the problem has been going on a while and is much deeper than what you actually see.
 
I legitimately cannot read /r/portland without getting furious. I have to click off everytime. You see people who are educated and should know better advocating for the death of their own city and they don't even know it. The level of delusion on that sub is incredible. I remember there being a thread about the PPB response time and they claimed proud boys (Why is it always proud boys with them?) had infiltrated the police force and that's why cops weren't showing up to crime scenes anymore. As in the proud boy cops in response to the calling of defunding were doing it out of spite because they hate progressive Portlandians.
Oh another bullshit they like to pull when someone mentions defunding the police is "the police weren't ackshually defunded!" Which, it's not really true, of course they were not totally defunded but their funding was cut. But how is that helpful? If the police not doing their jobs is causing the city problems, which they acknowledge, why would defunding them more make it better?

I swear that subreddit is up there with smoking cigarettes in years of your life lessened from using it.
 
In other news, the Sec. of State has resigned over getting caught with a $10k/mo "consulting" gig with a sketchy pot dispensary chain that she was involved in overseeing, and the "right to rest" bill died in committee.
This story is pretty funny and deserves a proper telling in full.

It starts with a derelict house, filled with junkies. The house was a total blight on a neighborhood, where multiple squatters had overdosed and someone accidentally caught it on fire. There were gun shots and thefts and it became a real problem. Residents complained and a local journalist found out that the property had been purchased around the start of the pandemic by a company that is the largest weed dispensary business in the state. They were allegedly hoping to turn the building into a dispensary, but the permits and such were taking too long and the property was just left abandoned in the mean time.

In investigating the case of the meth zombie house, the journalist found out that this weed company employed the new secretary of state as a consultant. The same secretary of state who would regulate the industry, meaning that there was a large conflict of interest. Also the weed company hadn't been paying taxes, for multiple years. Whoopsie! So people got pretty cheesed that this elected official was taking bribes from a criminal enterprise and now she's quitting her job. Also I think our new lezzie governor is caught up in it as well. Anyway, I hope they all die. The end! (or is it?)
 
In investigating the case of the meth zombie house, the journalist found out that this weed company employed the new secretary of state as a consultant. The same secretary of state who would regulate the industry, meaning that there was a large conflict of interest. Also the weed company hadn't been paying taxes, for multiple years. Whoopsie! So people got pretty cheesed that this elected official was taking bribes from a criminal enterprise and now she's quitting her job. Also I think our new lezzie governor is caught up in it as well. Anyway, I hope they all die. The end! (or is it?)
The company hadn't been paying vendors in addition to owing a ton of back taxes, but they had been throwing around tons of money to politicians besides Fagan (the SoS).

Kotek got $68,365 in donations from the company, so she's now made a $75,000 donation to the Oregon Food Bank. The owners also hosted multiple fundraisers for her. I haven't seen stories about apparent quid pro quo stuff involving Kotek the way that Fagan was involved.
 
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