Comments

3
open your own fucking weed stores if an owner who isn't from the neighborhood bothers you so much. if you can't, that's not anybody's problem but your own. this shit is so tired.
4
And bythefuckinway

>And when you have a smarmy guy like Ian Eisenberg turning his music up, it's triggering, and it's so complicated that it can't be narrowed down.

>it's triggering

handle your own fucking shit. This is so fucking childish.
6
It's odd how for all some persons' concerns about colonialism, they regurgitate all the blood libel they can, fully undigested. Some people just want to Make the Central Districe Great Again, I guess.

Really though, I do wish there were other activists that got quoted more often, there are bound to be far less nutty people involved and concerned about that neighborhood. Black dot and the peace center need better champions.
7
Lots of people are dealing with trauma. They don't all make nasty, stupid statements. Perhaps this guy would make less of them if more people would tell him they're not appreciated.
8
Hang on, you're saying there's anti-jewish bigotry in the black activist community?

Well that is certainly something new and not at all a problem that has shamefully persisted decade after decade for at least half a century now.
9
Maybe Omari needs to apologize to the long line of people he has hurt over the years, starting with this gentleman, if we are going to chalk this up to hurting and trauma.
10
Omari is mentally ill, and part of his illness manifests itself in violence. On top of that, he's a jerk and a fraud. The African-American community deserves much better than this self-appointed spokesman/"elder", but only they can reject him.

11
@10 - nailed it.
12
Wow, so much touchy-feely "context" and 360 degree attempts at even-handed "understanding"! Your composure here is admirable, Sidney.

The big story, though, seems to be that the left has to acknowledge that it's not just the right that has crazy people as "leaders" and a good number of "sane" people passively supporting them and even actively making excuses for them. It's no longer a question of a wrong political mindset; it's for a while now been a question of loosey-goosey magical thinking across the American spectrum.
13
If someone said "you need to go back to Africa and let the colonial British get ya" the world would be in an uproar.
14
Family of crooks and race baiters. Last year Wyking and his group were exposed for vandalizing their own building with hate slogans (swastika's/threats), Wyking still appeared in the press and at community meetings as a "victim" of racial hatred even after it was revealed his team was behind it. But he knows that the more you tell a lie, the more people believe it is true. Wyking uses the Goebbels play book to manipulate the press and the community. The problem here is too many community and government officials throwing support and money at this family without bothering to find out who they really are. In a rush to prove they are "supporting diversity" people are throwing support behind and propping up this family of devils. The greatest mistake a community can make is give legitimacy to crocodiles, scorpions, and snakes.
15
" Omari doesn't give a shit about religion. I don't think he's anti-Semitic or anything like that."

But if someone says something that sounds or feels racist to a POC, and then claims not to be racist, that's not accepted. Yet somehow telling a Jew to go back to Germany so the Nazis can get him doesn't make this guy anti-semtic? As a fellow Jew, I'm offended and think what he said sounds pretty anti-Semitic to me.

The irony here is that I agree with the protestors that Unkle Ike's is poorly located and a symbol of unchecked gentrification in this city. But by standing behind words like this, they lose a lot of respect and support.
17
I mean, instead of beating the dead horse and giving this family any more attention, what other activists are prominent in the area?
19
The article says that the store owners family has lived in the neighborhood for over a hundred years. How is that gentrification?

I live in Detroit, and marijuana dispensaries are considered the exact opposite of gentrifing.
The Detroit city council has attempted on multiple times to severely limit the number of marijuana dispensaries in the city, and the locations in which they can operative.
These are medical marijuana dispensaries, not pot shops. People have to register with the state in order to purchase medical marijuana at these dispensaries.
I find it very hard to believe that anyone could consider a recreational pot shop in their neighborhood as contributing to gentrification.

As far as the anti-semitic comments made by the activists, that should remind everyone that anyone can be a racist.
If the rest of the activist want to be taken seriously, they need to disavow hate speech.
That sort of rhetoric is not acceptable under any circumstances.

20
Sydney, I have a questions for you:

Why is it "complicated" when someone consistently says anti-Semitic things? Is it similarly "complicated" when they are racist against another group?

Where's the complication?
21
It's not exactly uncommon for the politics of anti-gentrification movements to turn ugly and vicious like this, lashing out at convenient scapegoats (I was just reading about the vicious attacks on art galleries in LA: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me…).

I think it would behoove The Stranger to perhaps skip the half-hearted, unconvincing excuses for this sort of thing and try to dig a little deeper and examine what it is about anti-gentrification politics that seems to so often lead to this kind of divisive, pointless, cruel ugliness.
22
OK, reading the story again, I want to retract the implication in the second paragraph, Sydney doesn't really do that in the " half-hearted, unconvincing excuses" thing is this article. Sorry Sydney. (I don't retract my suggestion to dare to take a more critical approach toward the ugly side of anti-gentrification politics.)
23
Those were multi-layered insulting words. Not only because of what was said, but also the lack of understanding of their gravity in the name of … of what?
No one is doing their own people a favor by brushing the issue aside.
24
NIMBYS of a different color are still NIMBYS. This is a city. Things change.
25
@24, very pithy!
27
Response to Adam's "The article says that the store owners family has lived in the neighborhood for over a hundred years. How is that gentrification?"

You'd have to be a local and know the history of this particular area of the Central District (even more micro than that: this particular corner) in order to "get" why this corner has become a political issue.

For decades, this corner was known as a space for the local black-American community. Even Africans (immigrated from Africa) had issues with the black community at this exact location. Local black-Americans harassed Africans who set up businesses on this corner (and elsewhere in the CD, like on Jackson street).

I don't even know how to explain this without going way back--but it goes_way_back and involves complicated local race politics (I grew up on 25th just several blocks away).
28
If my father or my friend were saying things like this, I'd be concerned for him, and he'd for sure need to hear from me that he said something way over the line. I don't know Omari, but it looks from here like he's got some issues that his son and friends are enabling.
29
I'm no Jew myself but that is unacceptable behavior to say the least. To use a Yiddish phrase or two I learned long ago those idiots are a bunch of schmucks & putzes. I'd check to find out if any of those 'displaced' drug dealers might be involved, it seems likely to me. I wonder how much business they've been losing from around there. The drug dealers have a lot of money to try to fight neighborhood improvements to protect their 'cash cow' markets. I grew up in a similar neighborhood back in East LA many years ago.
31
#27, #19 has the gist of things more than you do. The entire Central District was a Jewish enclave before it was an African American neighborhood. There weren't these race politics way back.

#19, the reason this is considered gentrification is for decades African Americans selling pot on the same intersection that Ike's is now on were disproportionately arrested and charged with criminal offenses. Any recreational shop on that corner not owned by African Americans will seem like gentrification at this point. It is seen as mockery, a gloating "When you want to do it, we call you a thug and make you a felon. When someone else wants to do it, we welcome them as an entrepreneur." double standard.
32
Jews were the staunchest allies of the Civil Rights movement, and relationships were pretty good well into the 60s. Then conflict in opinion over local and international events and the undercurrent of anti-semetism always lurking in the White Man's Christianity made things look different to some people.

There is so much history to be understood, but the people of the United States are staunchly ahistorical, and it often makes us stupid, politically ineffective, and vulnerable to manipulation. But the history is pretty interesting in its own right anyway.

“No part of said property hereby conveyed shall ever be used or occupied by any Hebrew [Jew] or by any person of the Ethiopian [African], Malay[Filipino] or any Asiatic Race…excepting only employees in the domestic service on the premises of persons qualified hereunder as occupants and uses and residing on the premises.”

–Racial Restrictive Covenant, Property Deed, Seattle, Washington, Broadmoor Neighborhood, (c. 1928)

The first Sephardic Jews-those who came from Turkey and the Isle of Rhodes and who spoke a unique language called Ladino-landed in Seattle in 1902. Expelled from Spain in 1492, now they fled the Ottoman Empire. The early Sephardim peddled fish and fruit. They joined their Ashkenazi brethren in living in the Yesler Way Cherry Street neighborhood of central Seattle.
http://www.jgsws.org/jewishhistory.php
33
At least people are finally being honest about it.
35
@18 - I was gonna say that your comment was a hit to your credibility David in Shoreline, but I already knew you didn't have any because that would imply critical thinking skills, which you also clearly don't have.
36
How do the Japanese feel bout this????
37
If the business owner had gone to the black man's house and said "go back to Africa - let the slave traders get on you again" I have no doubt that Sydney would be leading the charge to burn down the guy's business in the name of social justice.
38
When will people like Omari Tahir-Garrett realize that the Nazis persecuted dark skinned people (Romany, Africans, Asiatics) as relentlessly as they did Jews? At the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Hitler refused to shake Jesse Owens's hand after Owens won a gold medal.
In the 1990's, the American Nazi Party set up a storefront in Fells Point, a mostly African American neighborhood with areas of Eastern European immigrants. After repeated vandalization of their property, theANP left, forgetting that the Eastern Europeans may not have cared for their dark skinned neighbors, but they hated Nazis.
39
Is the complicated lawsuit" "complicated" like lots of forms cross-referencing each other or "complicated" like whacking someone with a bullhorn?
40
"The fact that his flagship store popped up"- the store didn't just "pop up", there where plans submitted, community meetings, permits applied for and issued, etc, etc. If the community didn't get involved to object, then that's their fault.

"circulated the video in a deliberate attempt to mislead people" - not misleading at all, the guy is an anti-Semitic asshole.

"I don't think he's anti-Semitic"- he clearly is.

"It's triggering"- oh boo fucking hoo.

@31- "When you want to do it, we call you a thug and make you a felon. When someone else wants to do it, we welcome them as an entrepreneur." double standard. Nope, not a double standard. When "they" we're doing it it was ILLEGAL (and still is to sell pot on a corner), hence the arrests. It is now LEGAL to sell, with lots of oversight and restrictions- a rather important distinction.
41
@31:

That's undoubtedly at least part of what's fueling the backlash, and personally, I would be completely in favor of WA state adopting a policy of exoneration, such as OR has done with low-level cannabis offenders, which I think would go some way towards healing the rift.

But at the same time Tahir-Garrett has long been known in the neighborhood (I lived just a couple blocks off the intersection for more than a decade) as, at best a local curmudgeon, and at worst an active threat to anyone who didn't tow his particular ideological line. Let us not forget that, in addition to the infamous "Schell Incident" from 2001, Tahir-Garrett was also involved in an armed standoff in 2013 at the old Horace Mann School on 23rd & E. Cherry, and that in 2008 members of the Seattle School Board & the Superintendent received a protection order against him, due to violent threats he made against them, and that he was well known by the district for disrupting board meetings with wild rants, shouting obscenities at board members & I believe physically assaulting one. In short, the guy has a chip on his shoulder as big as a city block, and a long, well-documented history of spewing hateful speech, and employing violence against those he views as opponents when it suits him.
42
The church seemed to have no problem with the drug dealers on the corners (as long as it wasn't on a Sunday) previously. They didn't and don't seem to have a problem with booze being sold across the street in front of the children! The "youth program" was a complete joke and a simple crutch they tried to use to bolster their case. That's what the courts saw as well. I once heard that alcohol was prohibited for years. But then the laws changed and it was legal. This is no different.
44
@43 - "They'd rather live with drug dealers and crime? Fine. Lets create a penned in area that they can all live in and commit all the crimes they want while leaving the rest of society alone."

You've just described rural white meth addict communities, except they won't leave us successful types alone - they vote in people like Trump. You should go have a talk with them about improving their own lives instead of expecting people like Trump to fix it for them only.
45
#40, way to miss the point. Neither side of the Ike's debate is thinking. This has moved on to how both groups feel they are (or were) being treated. Disproportionate prosecution is a sign of racism. Seattle is around 8% African American, and if I recall correctly amounted to roughly 40% of the marijuana arrests and prosecutions prior to medical marijuana being decriminalized. You can't convince me that African Americans were 5 times more likely to be selling pot, even on street corners.

#41, agreed on both counts. Exoneration would have definitely been a boon, and Omari is an obnoxious, violent agitator.
46
@44- I wasn't aware the meth addict voting block wielded such influence. Does this knowledge come from personal experience on your part?
47
@45-Didn't​ miss it at all. Are black folk arrested and prosecuted at a much higher rate? Undeniably. Is it wrong and disgusting? Absolutely. You can't compare the lack of arrests for uncle Ikes (legal) sale of pot to the former arrests of street dealers (illegal) sale of pot. Its not a case of "neener neener look at me getting away with it" The law has rightly changed. Retroactively clearing the records of people who were arrested and found guilty of selling a gram or two is something I can get behind.
49
#47, nobody is conparing Ike's sales to illegal deals. It is about the location, and the history of it.

Your willingness to forgive a gram or two shows your grasp of the situation. The common street denomination is eighths of an ounce, or 3.5 grams. Four baggies on a person for four deals means carrying half an ounce around. Forgiving the possession of a gram or two would exonerate a fraction of a percent of the people incarcerated on this corner for possession. Tightly packed and shredded (using numerous means), a single bowl can easily be a gram. Your numbers are simply way off.
50
@49- I beg your forgiveness. I haven't bought pot from a street dealer in the CD since the 80's. Let me rephrase - exonerate anyone arrested for peacefully dealing any amount of pot on the street. I'll fully back that.
51
Some more history
The Greek joint which preceded Ike's glass shop was torched.
Two different owners of the Philly Cheese Stake before that were shot, though at least in one of the cases the shooting wasn’t business related.

Granted, Eisenberg comes across a bit cocky and a smart ass. He’s also a businessman, and seemingly very successful at that. I remember the shop’s early days where there were hardly any customers. Now the place is attracting huge crowds from all over town and is open long hours all week long, which may add to the neighbors antagonism.

Seems like the conversation here revolves mostly around us Jews, any central districts residents here who would like to chime in?
52
Wyking needs to step up and call out his father for his shit. Omari has demonstrated time and time again that he can't control his outbursts, and for all he gets credit for, it's more collected, thoughtful folks in the community who bust their asses to get shit done. Omari gets attention, he's a rabble rouser, and that role is important, but that role also requires you to not make an ass of yourself and your community regularly. Wyking strikes me as a totally together dude who is doing what his father tried to do for years, but you know, effectively and without being fueled by rage.

The Horace Mann encampment situation is far more complex than I think Comte makes it (it came on the heels of Daybreak Star and El Centro - and the fact that it became such a long term shitshow as compared to those occupations is multi-layered) but Omari definitely hindered more than he helped NAAM coming along. I think he gets a lot of free passes for his involvement in that, and long term name recognition (and Wyking not being a total crank).
53
Keep in mind, however, that Eisenberg is also a piece of shit. #Neverforget
54
@53- enlighten us as to why he is a piece of shit. #substantiateyourclaim
55
@54, his security personnel are very heavy handed. I watched them take down a trespasser, who in trying to escape ended up smacked against a wall and bloodied (average day, not during a protest). While they stayed within the bounds of legality, they just barely did so. Intentionally walking that violent line, and supporting that walk, is a pretty shitty thing to do. Most green belt martial artists could have controlled the situation better.
56
Libertine - I don't think #19 "has the gist of things" because they don't even know the history of the CD and why this is even an issue/problem!

Speaking of, thanks for "educating" me no the fact that Jewish people were in the CD 100 years ago. *Rolls eyes* Did you not read that I grew up in the CD? I already know that fact, and the fact that a lot of Italians were there.

That doesn't matter, though, because the CD was solidly a black-neighborhood for all of the memory of anyone who is alive now and who has a dog in this fight. The gentrification is real, even if you bring up something that happened a century ago.

Even if Ike's grandparents owned a house somewhere in the CD in 1907, I don't think that erases the issue of Ike's shop on 23rd.
57
@55:

So, the security staff was doing their job, and performing within the legal boundaries established for such activities - how does that make Eisenberg "a piece of shit", exactly? Because he hired them and presumably instructed them to not overstep their authority?
58
Who's neighborhood is it? The people who live there now? Or, the people that used to live there?

To me, a neighborhood is defined by the people that live there in the present.

If one does not live there, can they define a neighborhood as not belonging to the people that live there now?

I wonder how many people who protest Ike's also smoke pot?

I wonder how many people who live in the neighborhood shop at Ike's?

Do Historical definitions matter in the present?

Do the people in the present care about the past?

The Stranger always post several stories from the minority point of view about this and similar issues.

Why don't they do several from the majority point of view?

What does the majority think about how the neighborhood is transforming?

Maybe The Stranger should ask? Unless they don't care about that.

59
@56 Next time you are out walking around, keep an eye out for the relics of the area's long Jewish history. For example, there are probably more old synagogues in the CD than anywhere else in the city. Most of them have since been re-purposed (Langston Hughes, Tolliver Temple, etc.). The dates vary but most of the changes happened in the mid-60's-early 70's, which is within the memory of a great many folks who are alive now.

60
Thanks for reporting this. I thought your article was fair and reasonable. The city shouldn't have permitted a pot shop on this corner. Now that it's there, and the focus of destructive conflict, could the city or a third party step in, offer mediation, and get energies directed toward actually DOING something to mitigate dislocation in the CD? People screaming at each other outside a business that has already been in business for quite a while is not doing anything helpful. Meanwhile, condos are going up and the rent and house prices are still too high for most people with deep roots in the Central District. The thing to look at is how the permitting decisions are being made. And what alternatives there are for people who don't want to leave the CD. We don't have to accept that the free market and developers run this town, do we? Maybe Uncle Ike's could contribute to some affordable housing in the neighborhood....
61
@60:

If we're going down that route, why single out the CD? Rents and housing prices are going up all over the city, forcing long-time residents (most of whom I would expect don't want to move either) to relocate farther away, and new development is springing up faster than mushrooms in a rain forest; it's certainly not unique to this one neighborhood. It honestly makes no sense to me for "protesters" to take umbrage at this one particular business. Why not protest The Neighbor Lady that took over the old Thompson's Point-Of-View space? Or the developer who just put up a mixed-use building across the intersection? Or the owners of Central Cinema or Chuck's Hop Shop just up the street? Any of these could be cited as examples of the gentrification of the 23rd & East Union area. So, why pick exclusively on Ike's? The only thing I can conclude is that someone (my guess would be the churchies next door) is engaging in a vendetta against Eisenberg, and are fomenting this simply to pay him back for having the temerity to site a business activity in their immediate vicinity with which they have a moral objection.
62
#56, yes, you said you grew up there. But your claim and your posts do not line up.

Regarding your claims of historical relevance, if you had grown up here you would know that was a canard. Most people alive in Seattle today were alive when the last vestiges of Skid Road were taken out IIRC. We cling to our history here, like Almost Live/The 206. Events that happened a century ago are still quite relevant. Talks about Forward Thrust vs. ST are still had over at the Seattle Transt Blog.

And it doesn't erase the issues of Ike's. Quite the contrary, it frames them in context. Isn't context a good thing?

#57, there is a difference between legal and shitty. For more information, I refer you to the current DoJ reforms within the SPD. The DoJ never said their excessive use of force was illegal, but it was problematic enough to be noticed on a federal level. You may allow people to hide behind a "Just doing my job." excuse, but that was kind of shattered somewhere between Germany, Switzerland, and The Netherlands a good 75 years ago.

It makes him a shit because he instructs them to be as violent and aggressive as possible, within the law. If you can't see how that makes someone a shit, I can't help you.
63
@55 I don't want to excuse abuse by security staff. But in the interest of understanding why a pot shot would go for genuine "bad ass" (trained guard attack dog) security personnel, it is worth remembering that the chances of a serious potentially violent armed robbery are way way higher at a pot shop than any other retail establishment because the federal constraints on pot shops' ability to use banks forces them to hold on to a lot more cash than any other business would, and serious criminals know this. The owner didn't hire that type of security to deal with in-your-face-but-peaceful protesters, so not much surprise that there would be an overkill mismatch.
64
He invokes moral+religious objections to Eisenberg's business. Aren't these feelings part of the American myth (only bad people do drugs) that props up the war on drugs? Idk. The church's objection to proximity with a business it dislikes seems to be in line with statements like "go back to Germany."

Again: Idk about a lot of this. But I think I got a problem with that line of objections to weed businesses.
65
#63, I beg to differ. The community was complaining before Ike's was opened. Their security staff is absutely trained and designed for aggressive protest response. Also, as I mentioned, the heavy handedness I saw from them wasn't during a protest. It was one vocal, mentally disturbed person who wouldn't get off the lot, yelling and screaming. Security decided to detain him for a signing of no trespass papers, he ran, and in the scuffle he was tripped and his head ended up smashing into one of the walls of their glass shop. It looked pretty bad, maybe even broken, but as head wounds bleed a lot it was hard to tell.

All legal, but also all over the top violent. The yelling person had already gotten the picture from tbe security bum rush and was leaving.

There are a handful of local credit unions taking cannabis money. In Washington State at least, pot shops no longer carry loads of cash. Besides, modern timed lockboxes make removal of cash during a robbery all but impossible. The explosives or thermal lance needed to cut through the box would burn or destroy the cash, making it a zero sum game.

Right now Greenside Medical is the unluckiest such business to my knowledge, with one after hours break in (resulting in a loss of product more than cash) and one arson at their higher end location (Lake City as opposed to Kent-Des Moines). The robbery target claim is really just a red herring, especially for Ike's with as busy and high profile as they are.

https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/shh…
66
#63. Ike here. Who in the community was complaining before we opened. It wasn't a secret we were building a building and opening a pot shop. There was no complaining or protesting until after we opened. You are mistaken.
67
Sorry meant #65
68
It really isn't complicated. He's a successful Jewish guy in their neighborhood. It really is that simple. His Jewishness alone is evil enough to them ("Teh Jews control x, y, & z!", etc.), but being so successful right in front of their faces is what takes it to a whole new level. If Chuck were Jewish it'd be the same shit.
69
#66, there were no open protests, but there was surly complaining going on. The Gentrification Police were using the g word to describe Ike's before you opened. The Church was complaining too.

I am mostly on your side here. While I don't think you've acted perfectly, I don't expect perfection from people under the amount of pressure you are under.

I would take you at your word if you told me your security was not originally designed with protests and protesters in mind. I have no personal friends in your employ, so I have to take things at face value.
70
#69 You're probably correct. I didn't hear about it. The GP complained bitterly when I rehabbed the Car Wash at the end of the block. Please take my word that protestors were not considered while hiring our security. Actually we farmed out security for the first 18 months or so to a company specializing in pot operations. They were mainly ex military types. We brought it in house and focused on nice people that enhance the customer shopping experience. That being said, bad eggs looking to disrespect Ike's employees, shoplift, rob etc are dealt with appropriately and respectfully. Never heavy handedly.
71
Gentrification is a tough issue. Anyone who thinks it is simple hasn't listened to the other side enough to acknowledge their truth. Both sides have a valid perspective. The issue of gentrification isn't going to be resolved in these comments, which is fine because the article is not about gentrification.

This article is about what inexcusable actions people will excuse because the actions were taken by an ally. It's about what contortions people will adopt to maintain a comic book simplicity in the narrative that their side is all good, correct, and just and the other side is all evil, wrong, and predatory. In the real world people are not all good or all evil. In the real world we are able to say that good people sometimes do bad things.

Omari Tahir-Garrett is neither a saint nor a devil. He's a man. All efforts to portray him as otherwise are false.
72
Omari Tahir-Garrett is neither a saint nor a devil. He's a man. All efforts to portray him as otherwise are false.

That's a meaningless cliche. Of course he is. It's also increasingly clear he's a bigot. What does it say about the "anti-gentrification" movement that they're happy to have a bigot as a central figure in their movement? A lot, I think, and none of it good. All this can be true while recognizing complexity and some good intentions can also be found in the bigot's soul.
73
#56 -- So as long as no one within living memory can identify someone of a particular race living in a particular neighborhood, it'd be OK with you to keep them out? You know, restrictive covenants to keep Black Americans or Asian Americans from buying property for homes and businesses? Hmmm?
74
Those NOT denouncing Omari's vile racist statements are just as complicit in spreading and giving credence to these sentimits. I've first hand heard even worse from Omari at last summers protest against Ike's. He's a sick mentally disturbed old man. Here's another Omari performance.

https://youtu.be/8kil6oV0QOA

75
@54 - i live off of 15th and first hand witnessed his shitty underhanded ploys to prevent Ruckus from opening near his future Ike's outpost. He opened a free to play arcade in the future Ike's because according to Seattle zoning, weed stores can't open within a certain distance of a number of things, including schools, and bizarrely, arcades.

Literally the day after the city said "uh, no - you didn't have your proper permit for your arcade, buddy" - he closed it down.
76
And for the record, I shop at Ruckus but have never even spoken to them about Ike's. Since this is anonymous and they are across the street, I don't want to make it look like they have anything to do with my bitching.
I just found that entire saga to be some low as hell business dealings.
Also, just from a good neighbor standpoint, it's one thing to open a weed shop on 23rd & Union (THE center of the gentrification conversation well before Ike's opened), and another thing to build a weed shop with ropes like youre heading into a damn club, and one that basically became a tourist attraction as soon as it opened. It's the highest profile weed shop in the city, and nobody likes their neighborhood turned into a tourist trap, and that corner changed FAST. I'm a white girl and those businesses in those new apartments are too bougie for even my tastes. For better or worse, its the lightning rod in the area, for good reason, and nobody should be surprised.
77
1) Im Jewish
2) Im a founder of the Washington Cannabis industry (PDA, 4e, HASH)
3) I grew up in South Seattle and lived/worked in the CD in the 90s

Ian Eisenburg DOES NOT represent us. He does not represent Jews. He does not represent my industry. Ian is exactly what is wrong with this industry. He does not support his local community. He picks fight with people in the name of capitalism. His phone number at IKEs is 1(800)GetDrugs. He's a pornographer. He's a living breathing piece of shit.

I have dealt with 'soft' racism my whole life being a proud Jew. But its nothing like my black friends have experienced. I have also gone out of my way to explain the politics of my people to others because I want them to understand what it means to be apart of a privileged minority. The onus is ON US to assimilate to our environment or face the consequences. I have told this to Eisenburg repeatedly, imploring him to help out the CD and LEAVE THE JEWS OUT OF HIS DEBATES. I understand that block. I have had friends in that neighborhood my entire life and I would NEVER think of opening a shop in the central without the support of the community. Ian Doesn't give a shit so he deserves everything that he gets.

While Ill never condone Racism. I understand why the Jew get a bad name here. He is pulling the cash out of the hood and not giving any back to help with the social agenda in any way. Fuck Ian, Duck ikes. Boycott them forever.

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