Photo and blog post by John HoffRecently, word went around the Jordan Neighborhood about how the Penn Gas Stop at Penn Ave. N. and 26th Ave. N.--a notorious inconvenience store patronized by thugs, drug dealers, hookers, at least one Level Three sex offender, plus various other disreputable no accounts--might be under new ownership.
So I stopped by there a couple weeks ago while checking out the latest shooting memorial and it turned out to be true...
...but the new management has no intention of changing ANYTHING, and told me so right to my face, stating they will still sell "blunts," the little cigars which are oh-so-convenient for quick conversion to marijuana, plus they'll offer "long, plain white tees," the uniform of choice for neighborhood drug dealing and loitering.
Therefore, it appears the unrelenting barrage of 911 calls and 311 calls on this disgusting urban hell hole must continue.
Revitalizers...mount up!
10 comments:
Who cares if people smoke blunts in NoMi? There are people getting murdered once every couple weeks and robbed and assaulted much more frequently.
Marijuana prohibition gives the derelicts an easy way to make money. It causes crime rather than preventing it.
And if I was a young black male I would wear the same outfit as other young black males so it would be harder for the cops to harass us.
Sigh...
It's too bad the only nice place to get gas and snacks is on the other side of 94 (Holiday).
I hate this place. there is no real food there. An ample supply of chips and blunt wraps..plus the men out front that yell crude things at you as you exit.. or the 14 year old boy trying to sell you tiny little sacks of weed. The place smells like a grandma's fart passing through an onion... the floor is always caked with mud and at one point blood.. when I asked for a pack of camels he tried to sell me new ports( camels cost about a dollar less then new ports ). when I prepaid for gas and went out to fill my tank it wouldn't work so I went back and asked the guy why it wasn't working and he said I hadn't paid for it yet.. I said yes I did we fought for ten mins the I said I was going to call the cops.. then he remembered . This gas station is in many rap songs about how you can get yourself a couple of dimes or shot at. pretty sick of seeing the hookers that I see every other day wearing the same nasty orange dress with the missing strap but somehow it is still clinging to her body by a piece of her weave. Oh and the ball flasher. Oh the ball flasher.
We get our gas there most of the time. I must be lucky because I've only gotten smiles, "thank yous" for holding the door open, or I'm just left alone. Even at the one time at night we stopped to fill up, I wasn't bothered.
I don't know if the new owners still do this, but I loved how the old owners hung chains up between the posts to block the entrances when they closed. (Oh WAIT - they actually did it like 10 minutes BEFORE they closed!)
The only time I ever went there with my vehicle I *nearly* drove through the utterly invisible chain. I can only imagine the damage that would have caused to my car.
I have not been back since.
I think the chains are perfectly visible as long as you aren't driving around under the influence.
oh yeah the chains! did you not see the plastic bags tied to it?
The City of Minneapolis should be the only operator of businesses in NoMi. This Inconvenience Store should be taken through eminent domain and turned into a City-run bicycle shop.
It would be interesting to find out from the owners how much they would have to generate in "good neighbor" sales (really good coffee, organic produce) to make up for the "bad neighbor" sales (blunts, white tees). I bet it would be a lot, because as far as I know, gas stations make almost nothing selling gas, it's mostly add-ons that generate income.
And that's pretty much the story right there. Without some sort of agreement with neighbors like "Hey, if you stop selling blunts and white tees and bring in $50K per year worth of our favorite artisinal bread and cheese, we'll buy it all," a neighborhood store's goal can't be much other than moving people a few feet further off the property before they use the product they just purchased.
On the other hand, what about making such an agreement--or trying, anyway?
The latest information is that drug dealers are not being allowed to hang out in the parking lot.
Woo hoo. (Sarcasm font) This sure shows a big neighborhood commitment from the new owners, not letting DRUG DEALERS hang out in the parking lot. I guess they are allowed to go inside, buy their blunts and long plain white tees, and then make their way across the street to do their drug dealing.
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