Seventy Year Old Woman Abused at Carnegie, Security creates No Consequences

A 70 year old woman had a bottle of water thrown at her by a man as she stood waiting for the elevator at Carnegie.  She said the bottle could have broken her ankle, as it landed near her foot.  She reported the incident to Skip Everall, Security Co-ordinator.

Everall spoke to the man who had thrown the bottle and then dropped the entire issue.  The woman was puzzled that nothing had been done.  She was told by another Carnegie member that Everall has a record of not taking abuse of women seriously.

In fact, the way this case was handled is typical of the sharia law practiced at Carnegie under the the City of Vancouver.  The way sharia works is that a man's testimony is given twice the weight of a woman's.  And men can decide on the punishment a woman deserves, without any input from her.  (Skip Everall and guard Ted Chaing, made a decision about a woman's punishment for raising the issue of sexism, without any input from her.)  Physical abuse of a woman is not considered serious, although a woman failing to defer to a man is considered worthy of serious punishment.

Such sharia punishment, when imposed by the City of Vancouver, generally involves barring the woman from City services for an extended period. After she serves her sentence, she has the option of meeting with Everall, a meeting during which she must act meek and deferential, and make no mention of her rights, in order to be considered sufficiently rehabilitated to have access to services funded by her tax dollars reinstated.  I'm not exaggerating.  We have tapes of these 'sharia court' sessions financed by the City of Vancouver.  It's an example of the social degeneration that can occur when City Hall tosses 3 million dollars a year at Carnegie staff, and essentially looks the other way, expecting little or no accountability for how patrons are treated.

I pointed out to a Carnegie member a couple of years ago that what was being practiced at Carnegie was comparable to sharia law.  She then pointed this out to Carnegie Director, Ethel Whitty.  Ethel "just shrugged", she says.

Whitty gets Elderly Man Barred from Carnegie after he gives her "Hitler Salute"

David Wong, a Chinese-Canadian man in his eighties who works his ass off as a bus boy in the Carnegie Cafeteria for eighty cents an hour in food vouchers, was barred from this City building for two days.

That was after he gave Director Ethel Whitty the "Hitler salute".

Presumably an Incident Report was entered into the City of Vancouver-Carnegie "Security"database or big black binder. Security Incident Reports are written up on Downtown Eastsiders guilty of assorted forms of freedom of expression in relation to Whitty, her security boss Skip Everall, or other staff. But often what is written in the binder is City staff's self-serving version of the event.

When I think of David Wong, the phrase "elder abuse" crosses my mind. A few weeks ago, Wong got into an argument with a woman in the Carnegie cafeteria and when she walked past him afterwards, she shoved him out of her way and he went flying. He flipped backwards in the air, landed on his ass and banged his head on the floor. He made such a thump that security staff from the first floor came running up to the second floor. The woman who had shoved him was barred. Wong emerged from the incident unharmed. Amazing, since just a few months ago he was in the hospital as his health was poor.

David Wong is not always easy to get along with, to be honest. He's not violent but sometimes he gets overzealous about taking people's dishes off their table, and if somebody says, "Hey, I haven't finished eating yet", he can get upset and give them a loud calling down. But he can also be charming, especially to some of the women. Because his English is poor, it's difficult to know whether he's senile. Lots of people like him though. And of course CUPE likes him because he slaves away for crumbs and keeps the cafeteria running smoothly.

David Wong will no doubt survive into the new year to be barred yet again. And the Whitty-Everall barring projects that fill up their big black binder will survive well financed now that the City is imposing an increase in the head tax ...excuse me, property tax.