An Ethel Sighting on Boxing Day

After a year of sitting in her office rubber-stamping barrings of Downtown Eastsiders from Carnegie Centre, Ethel Whitty was spotted on Boxing Day. She was in the Carnegie theatre helping to serve turkey dinner to those still allowed through the door. The dinner was free but you had to have been given a ticket by staff.

It was a traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Instead of the brussel sprouts they served for years, they made the switch to mixed vegetables this year and last, carrots and peas this year There was also apple juice. Fruit cake for dessert. And all the coffee you could drink for as long as you were allowed to sit in the theatre, which wasn't long because there were three sittings so there was a new crowd waiting to burst through the doors.

Rudy, a musician, was Santa. The real Santa Claus couldn't be expected to work on Boxing Day, having gone full tilt over Christmas. So Rudy who has a natural long white beard gave out the gifts.

City Workers Force Low Income Man to Eat Cabbage Rolls Instead of Turkey Dinner on Christmas Day

A Downtown Eastsider who had not had a turkey dinner in several years, didn't want to miss out this year. He had been told by other Downtown Eastsiders that the Christmas dinner at the Salvation Army can be counted on to be good, and the volunteer servers are always eager to ensure people enjoy their dinner. So he headed over there today. But he got there too late; the security guard told him the dinner ended at 1:50 p.m.

Another Downtown Eastsider suggested he head over to the Evelyn Saller Centre cafeteria, "the 44". It's not free though, it's two dollars. He had three dollars and something in his pocket. His father had sent him money this Christmas but he was broke; his money got stolen. He has a mild head injury and seems to often get money stolen from his room, or he gets pick-pocketed, or "rolled" as they say. "I've been feeling jinxed", he said.

He headed over to the 44 where a female security guard in a blue "Security" jacket, young with blonde hair in a pony tail, was warmly greeting people with, "Merry Christmas", at the door. But the Christmas spirit ended at the door (except for Santa who was in the back of the Centre giving out gifts.)

The man waited for his turkey dinner in a long line-up stretching outside the cafeteria, and when he got inside, two City workers were shoving plates of turkey dinner onto the glass counter over the steam trays. People in the line-up would grab a plate as they passed, pushing their tray along. The counter is above eye level unless a person is tall, so some people have to crane their necks to see what's on the plate. Anyway, this guy saw the person in front of him take a plate of turkey so he took the next plate. "All I saw was the brussel sprouts", he said. As soon as he picked up the plate, he realized it wasn't even close to being a turkey dinner. It was cabbage rolls, two of them with tomato sauce, and three or four brussel sprouts on the side. So he went to set it back down on the counter and take a turkey dinner. "Too late," said one of the City servers, "You touched it, you have to eat it."

These servers would have known that the guy they were stickin' with cabbage rolls on Christmas didn't have a second $2 for Christmas dinner. They know their clientele. It's not uncommon for diners to have no money and have a welfare account there; the government prefers to finance meals when possible, rather than hand out cash to people who may have difficulty handling money. This guy doesn't have a welfare account, but he does eat there occasionally and he certainly looks poor. Compare the clientele to the servers who are at roughly the same educational level but make, according to a regular diner who chats with one of the staff, $22 an hour. Double that for Christmas. And their contract allows them to close an hour early on Christmas, 5 p.m., to eat with their families.

So the low income guy with the head injury ate the cabbage rolls. "They were awful," he said. He left quickly, forgetting to pick up his gift from Santa. He was edgy with his friends afterwards.

There were two witnesses to the CUPE members' cabbage-rolling this guy on Christmas. One of them was mistreated by the same two surly servers. She asked if she could have dark meat. One of the servers, an Asian woman, possibly Filipina, reportedly said, "No, we give half and half", but then proceeded to put mostly white meat on the plate, as if to be spiteful. Her co-server, an even more surly older white woman, snarled, "We don't do special orders." The woman told her that she wasn't expecting a special order, that half and half would have been fine, and that they were being pretty mean considering it was Christmas."

Then came a bit of a miracle. The guy who got cabbage-rolled on Christmas walked over to the Dug Out Drop-in centre where they were serving free coffee and pastries, and spotted a guy outside with a big plate of turkey dinner. He asked him where he got it and was told the Chinese Christians were giving them out at Potters Mission over at Hastings at Carroll St. So this guy went over there with a couple of friends and they were each served a heaping plate: turkey and gravy, lots of green salad with chopped red peppers, mashed potatoes, and in the centre of the plate, pieces of oranges, and chopped apples and banana. And a gigantic piece of pumpkin pie.

The Potter workers were able to actually communicate with Downtown Eastsiders. Like when they got questions about whether people could have an extra empty plate to cover their heaping plate of food so that they could take it out, or whether they could have a bag or a container, a female server would explain that they really preferred that people eat their meal there rather than take out. They had lots of chairs to sit in and a live band to listen to.

But the Potter's Mission dinner was not the last served to the cabbage-rolled man. He was told that if he returned to the Dug Out at 7 p.m., they would be serving a Christmas dinner. There was a long line-up along the back of the building, but it was worth it. They served him a heaping plate of food and put tin foil over the plate for anyone who wanted to take it out, as it's a small place and couldn't seat everybody. The volunteer server at the meat tray was asking, "What's you're preference, white meat or dark?" And even after one of the men helping out said they'd now served 100 people, each server continued greeting each person in the line with a warm, "Merry Christmas!"

Two cabbage rolls, and two Christmas dinners. Merry Christmas.

Jenny Kwan Helps Man Unjustly Barred from Carnegie

A Chinese man who has been going to Carnegie for 20 years, says Carnegie Security boss Skip Everall told him, "You have a big mouth." The Chinese man who speaks broken English, responded, "A lot of people around here don't like you." Everall barred him.

The barred man's last name is Kwan, like the MLA, Jenny Kwan.

When Kwan was barred, he recalls, "I was really angry." He called Everall a "bully" and an "asshole" .....in Chinese. He said it in both Mandarin and Cantonese, which got the attention of the Chinese people who sit around in Carnegie.

After being barred for 4 months, it was time to have a Kwan to Kwan talk.

Kwan spoke to Jenny Kwan and told her about the unjust barring. He believes she had a staffer call Carnegie. He went back to Carnegie and was allowed in. He tried to talk to Everall who told him, "I don't want to talk to you."

Barring is going full tilt at Carnegie. Kwan says they have now barred a short, middle-aged, Jewish woman, from a middle-class background. The barred woman had been going to Carnegie for years for the arts programs. A woman who sometimes comes to our blogger meetings knows her, and says she's quite assertive which is probably what got her barred. Kwan says the barred woman doesn't want to go back to Carnegie now that she's been barred. It's common for people who are barred to never go back.

"They bar all the good people," says Kwan.

The names of the hundreds of people who are barred each year remain on the membership list though, as they have paid their $1 membership fee and been issued a membership card. They are included in the stats Carnegie gives to the government to justify funding.

City Staff at Carnegie Go on Name Calling Rampage

As the City of Vancouver hikes residential taxes and community centre fees, we are reminded of the "services" being funded.

A City staff person at Carnegie Centre left a series of comments at this blog last week in response to our latest post, "Man Banned from City Services without Evidence." It is obvious that the comment was written by a staff person as they referred to "J", a barred man discussed in the post, by using his legal name, the name in the Carnegie security database, not the name patrons at Carnegie use for him. The commenter also appeared to have familiarity with the barring, which few people knew about as "J" had left Carnegie immediately after being told he was barred. Bloggers did not initially publish the comment because the staff person had breached confidentiality legislation by naming a banned patron.

Following is the comment, with the barred man's name edited out. Note the presumption of guilt despite the fact that City staff lacked evidence to bar this man from City services at Carnegie:

"[His] simple 4 day barring from Carnegie is totally acceptable and understandable. Carnegie is a "clean and sober" community centre where patrons, including women, children, seniors and handicapped persons, can be quite upset by displays of public drunkenness and consumption. As well, there are many patrons who struggle with sobriety and can have adverse responses to such behavior. If [he] is in such dire need of Carnegie resources, he needs to be prepared to abide by some simple rules that were created with ALL in mind - not just to preclude [his] poor behavior. Shame on you [Name] - and the writer of this post - for trying to make it sound like he was poorly treated."

Note also the fact that this staff person portrays people who speak up about barrings as the problem, not City of Vancouver staff who are denying taxpayers access to services without grounds.

When we failed to publish this comment, the Carnegie staff person escalated the smear tactics, which staff routinely do, and falsely suggested the barred man was gay and attracted to the Security Supervisor, which would be Skip Everall. Again the staff person used the barred man's legal name which we have edited out.

"Rumor has it that [Name] has a "thing": for the Security Supervisor and British accents! "

When we didn't publish that smear, the Carnegie staff person left yet another comment:

"If the BLOG had any sense of commitment to the DTES, it would print my post below which I have submitted numerous times. But you obviously do not care about the 1000's of patrons of Carnegie as a whole." The commenter ignores the fact that easily a 1,000 people have been barred from Carnegie since it opened, and then does what abusers typically do, minimize the abuse. "You only care about the fuck ups who - "fuck up" - the enjoyment of the Centre for all - namely...."

Here the commenter discloses first and last names of people who have been barred and/or spoken up about the unfair barring process. Again, it was obvious that the comment was coming from a staff person as they named a person whose barring case is known only to Carnegie staff, and one blogger. Confidentiality legislation was not only disregarded by the staff person in disclosing names, but insults were then attached to those names, "Rich Bitch", "Boozy", "Madder than a Hatter"....

And of course a staff comment wouldn't be complete without libeling William Simpson, the man who has been banned from setting foot in Carnegie Centre since he exercised his democratic right to get elected to the Carnegie Board. The commenter falsely claimed that Simpson had lied about the fact that he was homeless. 'Bill "I'm homeless? but have residence in a nice coop".' Bill did not lie. He was sleeping in Crab Park for months.

In closing, the commenter again portrayed people who speak up as being the real problem, not City staff inflicting an epidemic of barrings on Downtown Eastside residents attempting to use City services. "You are all in need of a metaphorical kick in the ass."

Ad hominem attacks are always quicker and easier than supporting claims with evidence. And evidence has never been City staff's strong point.

Did Larry Campbell Split from his Wife?

Did former Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell split from his wife, Dr. Enid Edwards? I wondered when I read an interview that I stumbled on today as I googled articles on the Olympic Village going into receivership. In the interview dated Oct. 2010, the reporter mentioned that Campbell had moved into a one bedroom condo he purchased at Olympic Village, from a bachelor suite in Kitsilano.

A bachelor suite? He lived in a house on the west side with his wife when he was mayor. I remember her telling the media that she liked to tend to her flowers in the yard there. She must still be around as she's listed as a pathologist on staff at UBC.

Maybe he got rid of the house.

But he also got rid of any mention of his wife. She's not mentioned on his web bio for his current job as a Senator, and she's not mentioned on the Wikipedia page about his life and accomplishments. No mention of him even being a married man, which is unusual for a political figure as they usually like to project a stable image.

I recall when Campbell originally bought his condo, the media reported that he had bought two, side by side. His and hers?

I'm curious about whether there is yet another person Larry Campbell couldn't get along with.

Apple iphone found in Vancouver

A Downtown Eastside resident walking by the bus stop at Main St. & Terminal about 11 a.m. yesteday found an Apple iphone. The phone apparently belongs to a person named Cascas. Your dad has called 10 times, and Delena too. Laisse has left a message, "Cascas where r you?" We can't answer because the phone is password protected.

There is a photo on the screen. If you are the owner, you would know what is depicted in the photo.