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Pushcart war: Mayor backs the little guys

On Washington Street this afternoon.On Washington Street this afternoon.

Pushcart WarThe Boston Business Journal reports Mayor Menino had nothing good to say today about a downtown business board's decision to boot pushcarts from Downtown Crossing at the end of this month.

"“These guys have been struggling, and now the good days are coming and the association wants to bring in other vendors from elsewhere?" the mayor asked.

The Downtown Boston Business Improvement District, a government-sanctioned group that levies fees on Downtown Crossing businesses for promotional efforts, said last week it was booting the pushcarts for being too declasse and that it was planning a new pushcart effort for next year. The move sparked a petition drive, a Facebook page (and another one) and a Twitter feed.

Steve Himmer suggested the city chose The Pushcart War for the next "one city one story" citywide reading program.

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Comments

Of course Hizzonah is standing up for the pushcarts. I mean why wouldn't anyone want to buy the shit this guy above is peddling?

The story that Hizzonah and others are telling is the story that is convenient for votes: the little guy is getting screwed, and he is here to save them. Too bad that is not the whole story.

Those that actually bothered to look into it would realize that each of these vendors would be offered the opportunity to reclaim their space. And, I know this will sound crazy, but they have to be a relevant business in what is hoped to be a thriving part of the city to make it back.

Nuts right? I mean why would we actually want things to be better than the status quo?

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"There’s no guarantee that they necessarily will get a spot, and there’s no guarantee that they will get the same spot, because we’re looking at new locations throughout the district,” said Rosemarie Sansone, president of the BID"

That doesn't sound like existing vendors are guaranteed a spot, does it? In fact, doesn't Sansone specifically say "no guarantee?"

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And, I know this will sound crazy, but they have to be a relevant business in what is hoped to be a thriving part of the city to make it back.

It doesn't sound crazy, it sounds unbearably elitist.

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What in Boston does not scream elitist?

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I think the market has already decided that these are relevant businesses. The fact that they have been around for years "selling the same stuff" means that they are relevant.

(gee, who knew they sold cell phone cases in the 70s!! Unique and fashion forward!)

Care to put your name to this? And explain where your sponsorship is coming from? Hmmm?

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“The pushcart program has been in existence since the late 1970s, and some of them are selling the same merchandise that they’ve been selling for many years,” Sansone said.

Well I fear pretzels, peanuts, popcorn, flowers, fruit, drinks, sunglasses and hats just have to go. Why, just the other day I saw a woman buy sunglasses outside of a boutique! Perish the thought! Perhaps she had a fever? Then she bought peanuts and popcorn! Probably not even vegan! Can you believe people still eat... pretzels? How déclassé.

Seriously though, screw the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District. If you can make a living selling the same thing for 40 years, the market is sending a clear message. That message is lost on the BID.

If they want to spend time, money and effort critiquing the business environment in DTX, perhaps they should start asking serious questions about why so many storefronts and upper floors have been vacant for decades. Is the demand not there, or are landlords holding out for a big payday?

I don't see those questions being asked. What I do see happening is the BID using construction at the Filene's site as an excuse to drive people out of business.

The BID hopes to implement a smaller, transition pushcart program beginning this spring that includes fewer carts as construction in the district stands to eliminate currently available locations. Current vendors will be required to reapply for available spaces.

“There’s no guarantee that they necessarily will get a spot, and there’s no guarantee that they will get the same spot, because we’re looking at new locations throughout the district,” said Rosemarie Sansone, president of the BID, which manages the 26 pushcart vendors who stretch from the old State House to Washington and Temple streets. “For 2013, we expect the best vendors with the most unique, popular merchandise will participate in the transition program. The vendors have always been a staple of the Downtown Crossing area, and at the moment, we’re looking at updating the carts and the merchandise as the area is being revived with city and private investment.”

Link

Instead of simply saying "We'd like you to move from the following sites during construction," they're forcing long-term businesses to reapply for the right to exist simply so they can get rid of them.

Sorry if the pushcarts aren't fancypants enough for you, but no one has the right to destroy the livelihoods of those working all day, nearly every day in all kinds of weather for decades on end, on a whim. End of story.

The "everything in Boston must be shiny, polished, strictly luxury and tightly controlled by a panel of appointees" mentality is ridiculous, destructive and short-sighted. Boston is micromanging everything that makes the city appealing into some safe, sterile, cartoon version of itself.

There are all kinds of people working all kinds of jobs, interested in buying all kinds of things. Issuing an edict regarding what kind of general merchandise is worthy of being sold on a specific spot during specific hours by specific people is absurd. Anyone who thinks this is a good way to go about things should run a suburban shopping mall where they can let their classism and need for absolute control over every minute aspect of their surroundings run wild within the safe confines of a concrete box.

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Let's see...NASCAR is popular, and there isn't anywhere around that I can think of to buy racing jackets, especially the unique ones...that must be what she's talking about!

And to be a grammar elitist, 'unique' doesn't take a modifier.

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“There’s no guarantee that they necessarily will get a spot, and there’s no guarantee that they will get the same spot, because we’re looking at new locations throughout the district,” said Rosemarie Sansone, president of the BID, which manages the 26 pushcart vendors who stretch from the old State House to Washington and Temple streets. “For 2013, we expect the best vendors with the most unique, popular merchandise will participate in the transition program. The vendors have always been a staple of the Downtown Crossing area, and at the moment, we’re looking at updating the carts and the merchandise as the area is being revived with city and private investment.”

Well that make we suspicious... will it be the best pushcarts that send in bribes, or a whole new set of carts, administered from a single company. I swear I am not a conspiracy theorist, but it feels like these folks are trying to find a way to use the upheaval brought by construction to skim some money from the few thriving businesses still standing in that area.

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Sorry to break this to these idiots as a somebody who actually spends money downtown, but UNIQUE merchandise is NOT what is needed in an area that lacks such basic and fundamental items as ... FOOD, GROCERIES and anything not marked up 500% by CVS or 7-11!

These carts are selling the same things they always have because ... PEOPLE BUY THOSE THINGS! Also, THOSE THINGS ARE NOT AVAILABLE in the stores of DTX.

I don't know how fundamentally stupid these people can get!

Downtown Boston is NOT FUCKING EPCOT!

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Considering that the pushcart vendors were just about the only ones IN Downtown Crossing for years...

Considering the fiasco of the Filene's basement/sinkhole etc...

Considering the mayor's responsibility for that crummy state of affairs...

(yeah, yeah, I know - chasing away chicken restaurants took all his time...)

He damn well should back them

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They get rid of the old carts selling nuts and sunglasses and stuffed animals.
They replace them with new carts selling Irish wool sweaters and expensive earrings and Boston snowglobes.
The new carts don't sell enough of the upscale stuff to survive and go under.
The people who used to sell from the old carts move on with their lives.
Downtown Crossing has no carts.

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...firing everyone at a company without cause, but saying they shouldn't fear, for they'll all have the opportunity to re-apply for their old jobs.

Like most of us, I assume, I "actually bothered to look into it," and it's playing dirty, and playing careless with people's livelihoods. This is not the way you go about improving anything, least of all a neighborhood that desperately needs whatever commerce it has right now.

Anyone paying attention knows that Menino's been acting all steamed about the slow movement in Downtown Crossing. Enfeebled as he may be, he still holds the best grudge in town, and I don't see the pushcart people losing this one once he's backed their side.

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Let' see, we have Rosemarie Sansone, former Boston City Councillor at large. A woman who clearly learned that a few years slogging away at a do nothing job in city politics will earn her that well deserved $3144.92 a week she now gets from the vampires that comprise the BID. Not a bad payday for making phone calls on behalf of the well heeled civic minded people that only care about preserving and improving the Downtown Crossing area.

Then there's...

Jack Spurr -Developer
Ron Druker - Developer
Scott Brown - Twitterer
Brian Awe - Real estate lawyer
Joe Larkin - Developer- Who some of you may remember for being the guy who is probably going to charge 3K for a studio in the apartment buildings his Millennium Partners is putting in the Filene's hole. Now we can't have people paying 4k for a one bedroom being exposed to such rabble as people who sell common things in the street! The idea!
Christine Dunn - Savoir Media If her people are handling PR on this one, I'd be asking for my money back
John Rattigan -Real estate lawyer
Randi Lathrop - BRA
David Greaney - Investment maven and good friend of that working class band , The Dropkick Murphys.

You get the idea. A bunch of well off stiffs who,in their zeal to start raping what's left of Downtown Crossing, throw all of their loose change every week at Rosemarie to take the heat for throwing those nasty old pushcarts out. So now Mumbles is grabbing his lapels and crying foul. I would venture a guess and say he's now shown that he'll run again. My guess:Merino will undoubtedly play both sides of the fence here. He'll win a reprieve for the pushcarts for a while so if he runs again he'll look like the guy who was looking out for the working Joe. Meanwhile at the State Room some afternoon he'll be telling the BID yo-yo's that after they help him win a final term, "do what you want with the fucking pushcarts, what do I care?"

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This guy - although he fits right in with the rest, as you'll see.

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I was on a roll and just assumed it was the same Scott Brown that bent over so well for the banking industry.

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...is joining the Boston law firm of Nixon Peabody, where he will focus on matters relating to the financial services industry and commercial real estate, says the Globe. Given this bent, a forthcoming seat on the BID board is not hard to imagine.

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Why there’s so little housing stock in the city, and prices are so high? Or things are always closed.

This reads like a who’s who of making damn sure nothing get built or approved unless it lines the right pockets.

Looks like they must be worried with that negligible increase in development and are looking for other ways to keep the “Luxury” PR bullshit going and asking values high. Turning DTX into the failed Natick Collection is a brilliant way to justify those $4K studios, right? Right?

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I mean, the merchants should have a stake in the game too. Shouldn't at least one or two seats be reserved for them?

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Randi Lathrop, the Mayor's old/new business development BRA rep, has been pushing for the removing of the carts for years. It's hard to imagine that he didn't know about this.

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should be also focused on all the empty retail building and of course The Hole. Why is the city so powerless in regards to big real estate interests [most headquartered in NY] using their over paid for and over priced Boston 'investments' for tax purposes, and allowing them to sit empty for years even though every single one could be easily filled with tenants. Whatever happened to eminent domain? Well, at least they aren't burning them to the ground to collect the insurance like they did back 30-40 years ago. I guess that's progress.

A small 'elite' desire to make Boston nothing more than a 'safe' and 'quaint' urban environment, a nice escape from the real city a couple of hundred miles to the south, a place where their kids and grandkids can safely attend school and tourist can marvel at the 'charming' Sesame Street/Mister Rogers quality of some of our neighborhoods and downtown. Boston is a colony of NY today, just like we were a colony of the crown 225+ odd years ago.

I know it sounds like I have a chip on my shoulder, but what I wrote is true. All the most important economic assets of Boston are controlled by outside interests, disproportionately out of NYC.

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Downtown Crossing has more than its fair share of vagrants, panhandlers, and aggressive people with clipboards taking donations for suspect charities. The pushcart vendors are there, day in and day out, watching the people on the street and making sure problems get attention. The vendors add dozens of extra eyes and ears to the neighborhood, and make it safer for people to walk though.

The part-time, high turnover staff in brick-and-mortar stores can't see the street from most of their establishments, and have no stake in making sure that issues are addressed. The pushcart vendors livelihoods depend on it.

Remember a few years back, when a NY pushcart vendor stopped a terrorist attack in Times Square thanks to his knowledge of the area? They're an extra layer of security in a transient and oft-desolate neighborhood (DTX, not Times Square.)

Additionally, I'm not entirely sure why they're going after the pushcart vendors. They've been able to stay in business, while most of the brick-and-mortar stores are boarded up and vacant.

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