| To Protect & Serve the Rich: Jail the Homeless Mark Vallen Silkscreen, 1987 Los Angeles, CA 3330 |
| In a tentative resolution passed on Tuesday, Los Angeles City Council agreed in a 11-3 vote to criminalize bike repair on public property. With this new law, “the assembly, disassembly, sale, offer of sale, distribution, offer of distribution, or storage of bicycles and bicycle parts on public property” will become illegal. The ordinance was drafted by Councilman Joe Buscaino, with the intent to empower the police to eliminate bicycle “chop shops” by making it illegal to be in possession of: three or more bicycles,a bicycle frame with the gear cables or brake cables cut,two or more bicycles with missing parts, or five or more bicycle parts Such a motion continues a pattern of L.A. City finding ways to turn the unhoused and the impoverished into criminals, rather than targeting the conditions which cause poverty to begin with. It weakens mutual aid and good will amongst communities and appears to be a re-hashed version of “stop and frisk” policies that target poor, Black, and brown communities – if you can’t prove to a police officer that the bike is yours and that your intent to repair is “honest,” then you become a criminal. Who carries those kinds of receipts around with them? And how are unhoused people who rely on their bikes to navigate the city supposed to defend their rights? The final vote on this ordinance is June 21. If you live in L.A., you can talk to your local city council member about how this ordinance will impact your community by clicking this link. |
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