Monday, May 24, 2010

what's up the pike: put a strap on your head?


- Sk8ter Mom (see her profile in last week's Gazette if you missed it) posts this video of an argument between a skateboarder and security guards on Ellsworth Drive. (Warning: there's some strong language.) It's a little unclear what's happening here: who provoked whom, and why the security guards are literally following this kid down the street. What do you think?

- The City Paper's Tim Carman gets an exclusive tour of the kitchen at Hollywood East Cafe, which just reopened at Westfield Wheaton Wheaton Plaza earlier this year. "Out in Hollywood East’s cavernous dining room, I suspect few customers understand how much work [head chef Kenny] Lei and his team put into the plates that crowd those rolling steam carts," writes Carman, who favorably compares the restaurant to trendier dim-sum places that have popped up in D.C.

- Good Eatin' visits Mrs. K's Toll House on Colesville Road. "Mrs. K’s will never be hip or trendy, like say the new 8407, but it remains one of the nicest restaurants in this neck of the MoCo," he writes.

- Freelance writer and blogger/Briggs Chaney resident/friend of JUTP Whitney Teal laments the lack of coffee shops in East County, especially the ones that aren't welcoming to laptop-campers like herself. (Hey, at least she isn't breast-feeding or staging a protest in favor of breast-feeding there.) It's all on her new blog, The Washington Media Project, about "Newspapers, magazines, books, television, radio, blogs, social media (and staffers) in the Washington, D.C. area."

4 comments:

retgroclk said...

I do not know who these laptops users think they are- but I have seen too many park their butts at tables for hours- and nurse the same cup of coffee or not drinking at all..

If they want to linger they should go the library.

I have walked into a number of shops in the past with neices and nephews or friends and we have had to leave as there were no places to sit.

We were not going to linger for hours= just a bite to eat, and a cup of java and we were going to.

We understand the business of coffee shops, diners and restaurants and how tables must be turned over- but apparently the self-centered laptop users think they can dominate a table for hours.

What did these people do before there were coffee shops.?
What did they di before there were laptops?

Give me a break.

Silver Spring Skaters said...

What's happening in that video is the same thing that's been happening for years -- skaters being harassed and intimidated for riding skateboards...on a PUBLIC street.

Even though Chip Py won his fight, and the right to photograph DTSS, and even though County Executive Isaiah Leggett stated very clearly (quoted in the Washington Post), that Ellsworth Drive is public space, and visitors have ALL 1st Amendment rights there, DTSS KEEPS trying to walk that back by trying to prohibit visitors from engaging in completely legal behavior - skateboarding is not a crime anywhere in Montgomery County.

Shortly after I and other skaters made a little impromptu protest video last spring, DTSS security TOLD US we could skate on Ellsworth. Apparently, they later changed their policy -- but never made any attempts to tell us, the people who are affected by it.

Yesterday, I confronted DTSS Guest Relations Director Lillian Buie about the harassment of skaters. She acted surprised that it's still going on -- a full year after I met with her, DTSS Manager Jennifer Nettles, and Mike, their head of security, regarding attempted assaults and theft by her security staff.

Jennifer told me such behavior was a "firable offense", and she assured me it wouldn't happen again. One year later, nothing has changed.

I rode my skateboard through Ellsworth yesterday - while the street was blocked off. The female security person in the video told me to get off my board. I said no. She then told me I couldn't come back to DTSS.

I told her I'll be back there every day. DTSS security has no authority to ban me or anyone from a public street.

Lillian told me that they ASK that skaters not skate while the street is blocked off. Maybe they asked nonskaters not to skate there because they certainly never asked us anything.

When I asked her why they never contacted me, even though they've known for a year and a half who to talk to about skateboarders, her response to my question was "I don't know why."

FrankTheTank said...

This fine, upstanding skater threatened to put a strap (aka a gun) on the security guard's head. Not appropriate, no matter how unfairly one is being treated. No wonder people don't want skaters in DTSS.

Silver Spring Skaters said...

FrankTheTank, 'people' are fine with skaters in DTSS -- just not DTSS who seem to think they own that street, and their street thug security guards who continually break the law by denying visitors their 1st amendment rights, and who have attempted to assault skaters and steal from them on numerous occasions.

Whatever the kid said in that video, I'm not sure because I can't hear it that clearly. Kids say a lot of things. But WHATEVER he said, that in no way justifies the continual harassment that he, I, and every other skater experiences on this PUBLIC street.

If you don't like skaters, that's your issue. And you'll keep having that issue because we are going nowhere. Get used to it.