Street Market Report - July 21, 2013

It was a beautiful day for a market. Not a cloud in the sky.

For a weekend before welfare, the market was unusually calm. We had not a single fight, and not a single ambulance call. 

Three incidents bear mentioning.

Right in the morning, Glenn and I were getting ready to clean the park, and found someone sleeping next to the water attachment at the grassy area of the park. I tried for several minutes to wake them up gently so we could begin cleaning, and the person then woke up, threatened us, and then ran at us with a pipe. He then overturned the cleaning cart, and starting walking away with his cart full of stuff. We then started cleaning up our cart and he ran at us again. At this point, I called the police. They came and tried to find him, but he was gone by then. 

Later in the day, the person returned, and I felt extremely unsafe and flagged down an officer. The officer (1970) was very helpful, took down all the information about the incident, and said that they would talk to the person about the incident and hopefully advise him not to act that way again. 

At about 9:30 am I saw a car driving too fast southbound down Carrall St., with the passenger side window rolled down and a woman yelling at the vendors and honking. I walked out onto the road and stopped the car. I calmly informed them that they were driving dangerously, and they should not yell and be abusive toward the vendors. The woman in the passenger seat (identified at Sharon Berman) was yelling incoherently and being extremely abusive. Later she confirmed her name and told me that she lived in one of the nearby condos. She said that she was going to "get rid of you people!". 

I handed her a complaint form and asked her to fill it out.

Later in the day - around 4pm, several officers showed up and confiscated items from a vendor named Alice. Volunteers that witnessed the incident said that the police gave her an incident number, and had an interpreter present to explain to her how to retrieve her items, and what her obligations were. This certainly looked like good progress on our relations with the police. I did not find out if the vendor was charged, but this can be followed up next week.

Financial Report

50/50 Draw: $43.15

Table/Tent Rental: $119.00

Coffee/Pop Sales: $103.00

Total revenue = $265.15

Total spending = $97.95

Petty cash now = $1,274.60

Vendor count = 180 @ noon

Enjoy the pictures of the clean park at 6:15. Did not get a picture of the mountain of garbage this time (was busy with the police) but it was a monster... at least the size of a Volkswagen!