Old Dirty Alley

straight from the henry hotel garbage room direct to a street near you, courtesy of mr. pink and hotel manager patel!  (or, illegal dumping by the patels of the henry hotel.)

i’m walking down natoma street yesterday afternoon, on my way home, just before 3 pm.  there were three people scavenging through a pile of trash on the sidewalk, and one of those green composting bins was close by.  i figured one of the neighbors had left out a full bin and these folks grabbed it for rummaging purposes.  i snapped a few photos.

guess i was wrong about it being left out by a neighbor.  about 30 minutes later i poked my head out to see just how far the trash had been scattered.  as i was watching, a person in a pink jumpsuit-y type outfit (pictured above, in the earlier group of scavengers; let’s call him mr. pink) walked up with a green compost bin full of rubbish in tow and just dumped it on the sidewalk.  (presumably this was at least the second bin’s worth of trash to be dumped on the sidewalk.)  the two other guys who were scavenging continued to, well, scavenge.  i went outside but by the time i got there mr. pink was gone.  i snapped a few more photos and called the sfpd (at 15:38).

as i was milling about waiting for the sfpd to swing by (certainly a low priority call so it was going to take them a while) i snapped a few more photos.  20 minutes or so passed and then mr. pink showed up again, this time with a yellow bin full of rubbish which he handily once again just dumped on the sidewalk.  i watched all this happen and as mr. pink began walking back up sixth street i decided to follow him to see where he landed.  i was ten feet or so behind him.  as we were walking someone asked him where all the stuff was going.  he paused long enough to answer that it was all “on the street down there” and told the person “you’ll see the others”.  mr. pink hauled his yellow bin into the crosswalk at 6th and minna and he crossed 6th street.  i did not cross the street but continued up 6th.  i didn’t have to walk very far before i saw him go into the henry hotel, just one of san francisco’s many fine sro hotels.

i walked back to natoma street to wait for the sfpd and snap a few more photos.  but after a while i decided to walk by the lobby of the henry hotel.  the outer door was open and there were people in the lobby.  there were also three people behind the glass in the “office”.  mr. pink, a shorter woman (later identified as the hotel manager, ms. patel), and another man.  i walked back and forth a few times.  i snapped a photo from a distance as mr. pink and hotel manager patel left the “office”.  when there were finally no more people in the lobby i went in and spoke with the other man.  i wanted to know mr. pink’s real name, so i said to the other man “what’s the guy in pink’s name?  is that edwin?”  he paused a minute and said “yeah, that’s right.”  i said “no it’s not, i just made that up.”  i told him what mr. pink had just done.  he feigned surprise and said mr. pink didn’t need to to do that because they had a large garbage dumpster.  he came out in to the lobby and i repeated what i had said; i also told him the police were on their way.  i asked again for mr. pink’s name and he said he would wait to tell it to the police.

the sfpd showed up just after 5 pm.  i explained the situation to them.  when they showed up there was a person at the pile of garbage who was moving it off the street, more toward the edge of the sidewalk.  he had on dark jeans and a dark shirt with a cap and was wearing an id around his neck.  he kept his head down and when i asked if he was from the henry hotel he said no, that he was homeless.  after i looked at the pictures i had taken earlier i can say without a doubt that he was mr. pink, the same guy who had dumped the trash there in the first place (why would some random homeless guy clean up some random pile of trash, anyway, all the while sporting an id card around his neck?)

so the net net is that the sfpd stopped by the henry hotel.  hotel manager patel told them she would “review” the security cameras in an attempt to identify mr. pink.  the cops are supposed to stop by for a follow-up.

here’s what i think did and will happen:  the henry hotel had a tenant who vacated his room.  hotel manager patel directed mr. pink to dispose of the contents of the room at no cost to the henry hotel, so mr. pink ditched the goods on natoma street.  (no sense cluttering up that big empty garbage dumpster they supposedly have, now is there?)

further, hotel manager patel will, by some unfortunate stroke of fate, not be able to locate the video that would identify mr. pink.  and even though i have pictures, was a witness, can identify mr. pink, and am willing to do whatever it takes to make sure these pigs reimburse the city for the cost of disposing of their rubbish and that they get fined for their antisocial behaviour, nothing will happen.

so the henry hotel gets rid of three large bins of trash at the expense of the san francisco taxpayer and they suffer no consequences.  this blog post and any letters i might send to our elected and appointed officials in charge of this type of stuff will be all for naught.  sounds about par for our fair city.  once again, we have the money to pick up the illegally dumped trash of others but don’t have the money to stop it from happening in the first place, or to punish the perpetrators so they don’t do it again.

the patels need to be called on the carpet for their behavior.

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