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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.




 
For more than 100 nights, downtown Portland became bedlam. President Donald Trump sent in federal law enforcement officers. There were reports of protesters being snatched and hauled into vans by federal agents.
The way this is worded makes it seem like random innocent protests were being thrown into vans that's not what fucking happened. The people throwing rocks at cops and attacking federal buildings were the ones getting vanned not people simply protesting. Just some more journalist bullshit. The sheer amount of leftie butthurt it caused was so glorious. Made me proud to have voted for Trump.
 
We happened to be walking by an abandoned RV while the highway patrol was writing a ticket. Talked to the guy and he said he couldn't have it towed because someone might be living in it. My husband pressed him on it and it turns out he did know about the new ordinance but he hemmed and hawed about actually going through with his job.
My understanding about tweaker RVs is that they're a money drain on everyone who touches them.

Unlikely to be collected from the impound due to the cost, or because the "owner" doesn't have the title. Unsellable due to their universally poor condition, can't reclaim the metal like a car because they're full of biohazard tweaker poop and rotten wood and house-type materials. It's the downside of a towing service taking a government contract, because they're out the cost of towing it and now it's an albatross on their lot, and some tow places have gotten wise when it was time to renegotiate terms.

Plus they end up with tweakers at their lot doing tweaker things and fervently trying to get their belongings out of the RV, which they don't have title to and thus can't prove they're their belongings unless it's labeled (like a prescription).

Getting the OK to tow derelict RVs is a start, but there needs to be a plan for the cleanup. I'd wonder if the thing to do would be to find the owner of record, if the RV wasn't reported stolen. Mail the owner the filthy contents and bill them for biohzard disposal; maybe that would help dry up the cash sales of shitty RVs to tweakers in the first place.
 
My understanding about tweaker RVs is that they're a money drain on everyone who touches them.
A few of the sheriffs we called out to report these things in our neighborhood educated us on this. Absolutely infuriating how no cost is to great to throw at homeless people, except for the cleanup.
I'm so fucking tired of all the garbage generated by the tweaker class. From RVs to donated blankets crocheted by grannies. It all ends up on the street or in the watershed. The last time someone at work bragged about bringing a Costco pallet of water bottles to an encampment I couldn't help but mention it. So plastics are so terrible that we no longer allow any plastic bags and now all that's available are those shitty paper straws, but please, let the homeless make up the difference.
 
A few of the sheriffs we called out to report these things in our neighborhood educated us on this. Absolutely infuriating how no cost is to great to throw at homeless people, except for the cleanup.
I'm so fucking tired of all the garbage generated by the tweaker class. From RVs to donated blankets crocheted by grannies. It all ends up on the street or in the watershed. The last time someone at work bragged about bringing a Costco pallet of water bottles to an encampment I couldn't help but mention it. So plastics are so terrible that we no longer allow any plastic bags and now all that's available are those shitty paper straws, but please, let the homeless make up the difference.
At least we have the beautiful tapestry of trash spilling down the hillside next to all of our freeways. The hustle and bustle of the city!

I legit don't know what you do about it, aside from accept you're spending $XX,XXX per tweaker to deal with the problem. At that point your policies that aren't aimed at prevention - not like kids pay attention in school anyway, DARE wouldn't do better now than it did back in the day - just have to be aimed at mercilessly ensuring you don't have repeat offenders. Imprisoning people costs tons of money and just makes them temporarily not the public's problem, maybe you can use it to funnel them into rehab that might fix the issue, and really it seems like the best option aside from something hilariously unconstitutional like simply harvesting them for organs to pay back their debt to society for dealing with them.

That's pretty much the spectrum of solutions, as far as I can tell:
Do nothing and let the city suffer ------- Shrug and throw them in jail ------- Death penalty?
That last one is not an actual proposal but more the logical extreme opposing the whole "let's treat them with compassion!" schtick that just leads to everyone around them paying for the externalities of letting someone cook meth and litter and junkie out on the sidewalk. The question should be, what do you do with someone like that who refuses treatment? Are you satisfied with having the taxpayer fund their stay in prison, and hoping that inmate rehab programs forcibly get them the help they need? And if not, what's the alternative? Doing nothing is a choice, and if you reject any plan to deal with this then you're actively choosing to have these people on the streets causing problems for themselves and others. I don't have any good answers, but at least one imperfect choice leaves the city in much better shape, that's all I know.
 
The solution is work camps. If you are caught on the street you are arrested with the choice of diverting a felony by going to a work camp for one for a year. Half the money you earn pays for your board, the other half pays for a stipend given on a debit card/first months rent/deposit on your release. If you don't work you get held in contempt and get ten years in prison (which should also be a work camp). If you get caught being a hobo again you are in the work camp for 5 years instead of 1. Every time you return it's doubled. Rehab doesn't work. The addict has to WANT to quit, and if they got caught the want isn't there. It's just gonna put the addict through the motions for a few months before they go right back to square one. As far as the schizos, if they keep fucking up they don't belong in society either. It's not nice, maybe not even ethical, but it is the only way to not have schizos fucking up society.

Anyway, this isn't a Portland story but Seattle, but I thought it would fit nicely here.
So one of my favorite bands Spirit of the Beehive was on tour stop overnight in Seattle. They had a van pulling a trailer filled with about 150k worth of gear. Booted the vehicles and padlocked everything. Both were stolen, the trailer recovered with not much inside. Also the rest of the tour was cancelled. Probably about half a million obliterated in an instant. The security footage showed a two car PIT CREW pulling up to the air port motel at 4 am on the dot and disassembling everything in FOUR MINUTES. A day later PD recovered the van and while it waited in an impound lot IT WAS STOLEN AGAIN. The west coast is out of control.
 
Does that actually work?
Yup. Anything with lots of layers to help disperse the kinetic impact on a cut or for a stab add resistance and thickness to keep it from going deep. Only a matter of time until the place goes full Cyberpunk and the locals with money start wearing street clothes made of thickly woven Kevlar or linen.
 
The last time someone at work bragged about bringing a Costco pallet of water bottles to an encampment I couldn't help but mention it.
They dump them on the ground and take the bottles in for the deposit refund. Caps left all over the place. Since they aren't drinking the water, a do-gooder who for some reason still wants to throw money and time down this hole would be greener to drop off a Culligan system and have it refilled every so often.
 
The last time someone at work bragged about bringing a Costco pallet of water bottles to an encampment I couldn't help but mention it. So plastics are so terrible that we no longer allow any plastic bags and now all that's available are those shitty paper straws, but please, let the homeless make up the difference.
Hey, hobos are great at recycling bottles. Sometimes they get so excited that they empty the water out in the parking lot, just so they can recycle the bottles faster!


edit: beaten handily
 
Anyway, this isn't a Portland story but Seattle, but I thought it would fit nicely here.
So one of my favorite bands Spirit of the Beehive was on tour stop overnight in Seattle. They had a van pulling a trailer filled with about 150k worth of gear. Booted the vehicles and padlocked everything. Both were stolen, the trailer recovered with not much inside. Also the rest of the tour was cancelled. Probably about half a million obliterated in an instant. The security footage showed a two car PIT CREW pulling up to the air port motel at 4 am on the dot and disassembling everything in FOUR MINUTES. A day later PD recovered the van and while it waited in an impound lot IT WAS STOLEN AGAIN. The west coast is out of control.
The worst part is so many of these anti social fucks are enabled by shitlibs.
I kinda wish more people shot or killed the people stealing from them publicly. Yes if you steal from others you don't value your life.
 
Rubio is worried the city will simply fall back on older policies that also didn’t work
I'm so sick of this framing.

No, banning tents and sweeping encampments don't "work" to solve homelessness, but they do work to tamp down on public vagrancy and all the quality of life shit that comes with it. I'll take solutions that don't "work" if it means law-abiding taxpayers can live in relative peace.
 
I kinda wish more people shot or killed the people stealing from them publicly. Yes if you steal from others you don't value your life.
If you are coming onto my property and threatening my life to get my property, I damn well DO view my property as worth much more than your worthless life.
 
Just incase anyone needed more evidence Portland isn't a serious city here are some of the mayoral candidates running for office:
(Yes, the middle guy is literally living in a wooden shed under a bridge running mayor)




Screenshot 2024-10-27 151326.pngScreenshot 2024-10-27 151337.pngScreenshot 2024-10-27 151348.png
 
In a country without as many safeguards and rampant litigiousness as us?

The government would've stepped in long ago and fixed this wreck of a city with mass arrests and torching of the druggie camps.

They never caught the Cleveland Torso Killer, but, clearing the homeless/vagrant camps and telling the people therein to either get a permanent residence or get out of town stopped him from being able to kill again by denying him easy victims...... it didn't solve homelessness, but it directly saved lives.
 
Anyway, this isn't a Portland story but Seattle, but I thought it would fit nicely here.
So one of my favorite bands Spirit of the Beehive was on tour stop overnight in Seattle. They had a van pulling a trailer filled with about 150k worth of gear. Booted the vehicles and padlocked everything. Both were stolen, the trailer recovered with not much inside. Also the rest of the tour was cancelled. Probably about half a million obliterated in an instant. The security footage showed a two car PIT CREW pulling up to the air port motel at 4 am on the dot and disassembling everything in FOUR MINUTES. A day later PD recovered the van and while it waited in an impound lot IT WAS STOLEN AGAIN. The west coast is out of control.
Honestly, that kind of organization makes me a trifle paranoid. Like it wasn't just some shithead tweaker, but someone with an axe to grind against the band, making sure they lost ALL their stuff.

You're not wrong about the west coast being a lawless hellhole, but it says a lot that someone came in like (as you said) a pit crew and was in and out in four minutes.
 
The solution is work camps. If you are caught on the street you are arrested with the choice of diverting a felony by going to a work camp for one for a year. Half the money you earn pays for your board, the other half pays for a stipend given on a debit card/first months rent/deposit on your release. If you don't work you get held in contempt and get ten years in prison (which should also be a work camp). If you get caught being a hobo again you are in the work camp for 5 years instead of 1. Every time you return it's doubled. Rehab doesn't work. The addict has to WANT to quit, and if they got caught the want isn't there. It's just gonna put the addict through the motions for a few months before they go right back to square one. As far as the schizos, if they keep fucking up they don't belong in society either. It's not nice, maybe not even ethical, but it is the only way to not have schizos fucking up society.
Do we even have work camps in the US, let alone with those rules? The only time I’ve seen one of those is in Louis Sachar’s Holes.
 
Do we even have work camps in the US, let alone with those rules? The only time I’ve seen one of those is in Louis Sachar’s Holes.
No, but we should. Portland would be a nice place if the hobos were forced to work, druggies locked up, and schizos put in the asylum. You can go look at old archived footage of Portland from 50-60 years ago when this was the law. Beautiful place.
 
Back