October 12, 2005

The police were everywhere tonight, gathered in great force, staked out and vigilant, eyes peeled for the crime that they knew would take place. Somewhere tonight, in this throbbing metropolis, someone would blatantly pee in public, and the fearless officers of the Portland police force would be there to take the public urinator down. And the city, it slept better knowing that, come morning, there would be no yellow puddles on its sidewalks. Finally, we would be safe from the perpetrators of pee.

Yep, Portland's cracking down on crime. Aggressive panhandling, overt drug use, loitering, public urination, and other such dastardly deeds will no longer be tolerated. The mayor has made it clear that you can and will be arrested for public pot puffing, and you'd better think twice before whipping it out and whizzing where ever you like. Downtown Portland is now a pee free zone. None of those nasty bodily functions for us, thank you very much. And the Park Blocks? The curfew, boys and girls, is 9pm.

I'm really torn about this new crack down on "crime". Since my cafe is downtown and I take my walks in that area, I've encountered all the problems the city wants to cut down on. On a regular basis I complain to Ross about these nuisances. I've often said why can't the city do something about this and why does someones right to panhandle trump my right to walk down the street without being assaulted for spare change. And I still feel that way, that there are problems and they need to be dealt with, but the city's new plan of attack is a little over the top.

Announcing that they're going to crack down on these things is fine, but setting a 9pm curfew for the Park Blocks? That's just ridiculous. These are minor problems we're talking about, in a city that's already pretty damn safe. We don't need to enact a police state to deal a few nutty panhandlers and bladder control issues. But that's what it looked like tonight, police gone wild. They weren't arresting anyone, but the streets were literally clogged with police cars. Anyone who stumbled across the scene and didn't know what was going on would've thought something pretty dire had happened. But, no. The city is just making sure no one pees in public.

Oi. It's a tough call, whether these new public safety measures are a good thing. On the one hand, I loathe the idea of a curfew but, on the flip side, I am really, really sick of seeing guys pee in public. Perhaps we could solve the problem by using the so called crimes against each other. Tell the aggressive panhandlers that they can only be aggressive towards people who pee in public, and tell the people who pee in public that they can only do so if they're peeing on aggressive panhandlers. That'll either stop both groups from perpetrating their crimes or they'll bludgeon and pee each other to death. A win win situation either way.

And as for the public pot smokers, just let them be. The only threat they pose is to a bag of doritos.

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