My cameraman asked Steve if we could come this morning and film and interview some of the people harassing him, and he didn’t want us to, then he calls a press conference and invites the ‘real’ media;
Hildebrand says for the last two weeks, his business has been visited by large groups of people who’ve disrupted staff and other customers. Hildebrand believes the missionaries behind movement are connected to the payday loan industry.
Floyd Pickett is the organizer and says he’s here to do homeless outreach. Â He says the people he’s bringing in are paying customers who aren’t doing anything wrong. Â He has plans to bring in even more people. Â On Wednesday, he says he’ll bring in a bus of 150 people.
Hildebrand says he believes Pickett works for the man who owns North American Title Company.
Of course there is ‘obvious’ reasons why this is going on, Pitty Patt Powwers couldn’t resist to spin this being about helping the homeless and elitism;
It seems more than a bit elitist and snobbish to complain that these paying customers are being hauled in by his political opponents who are buying them food there.
So Patt, how many bumper stickers your campaign store business sold to Planned Parenthood and The Freethinkers? You know the business you were ‘unethically’ running while working for the SOS on the taxpayer’s dime. That’s right, you are Republican, you’ll take money from a dead guy as long as the check clears, doesn’t matter if you earned it or not.
This is truly hardball politics that have nothing to do with helping the homeless or missionaries. There is a part of me that feels sorry for Steve, but I also believe in KARMA. Steve’s political sins of the past may finally be catching up with him (you know, like getting Huether elected). BTW, why don’t you give your old meal ticket a call and see if you will help you out, or better yet your pal Barry in the White House.
I also find this ironic on another level, it doesn’t hurt to have a homeless shelter a few blocks away from his establishment for easy access to them, I have always felt that was a bad location for the shelter, and I bet Steve is thinking the same thing now.
At the end of the day, I will admit, this is fun to watch, gutter politics at it’s best.
A quick Google search ties the pieces together:
http://www.pjstar.com/article/20120121/NEWS/301219925
Nice to see that the police tell the owner he can turn away customer but if someone does not want to serve him at their bakery they cannot turn him away. I think both are wrong.
Go Steve go! Standing up against the corporate powers of legal loansharking. Heading down to the coffee shop to support him and what he is trying to do for the poor and disadvantaged in South Dakota.
if this pickett really wanted to feed the homeless, he could take them to hardee’s to have lunch with munson.
A gentleman, who was instrumental in electing the first African-American as President, is now being harassed by a ban of individuals, many who are minorities who are being used by their white paymasters just as these paymasters are using and destroying the economic potential of millions of Americans regardless of race do to their economic status through predatory financial ways.
That is the true irony of this story, it sadness, and its fact -and all the more reason why we as South Dakotans and Americans must say goodbye to the world Janklow and his accomplices gave to us some 30 years ago….. And we start to do this by saying goodbye to the reality of payday predatory lending right here in South Dakota.
Predatory lending and its modern legacy is to South Dakota what “Jim Crow” laws are to states like Mississippi. It is time we begin to end this disgrace and atone our sins and move on to promote a paternalistic and not a predatory attitude in the banking world.
Thirty years ago, South Dakota became “ground-zero” for the beginnings of the modern predatory mess, with a noose which extended beyond county or state lines, when it said goodbye to usury laws, which eventually lead the banking world to commit the audacity found in such failed and destructive banking practices as credit default swaps, the replacement of secured credit with unsecured credit, and upside-down home loans resulting in the near collapse of the world economy in 2008.
It is time South Dakota clean-up its act. Admit its financial sins and what it has done to this nation, its people, and especially the people like the ones who stand outside Steve’s coffee shop, who have not been lent to over the years, rather they have been used just as they are being used now in front of a local coffee shop….
I will agree, what they are doing to this ‘business’ is not right, especially with the petition at hand.
But for just for a moment lets talk about irony.
Hildy helped get the VP of Marketing for First Premier elected as mayor, period. Think about it, just for moment.
Yes, he did. And Weiland raised a ton of “big” money for Daschle over the years, but he wanted to “Take It Back” in 2014. Nixon was in bed with the “Red Scare” during the 1940s and 50s, yet only he could go to China and did.
What Hildy did versus what he is doing now is nothing new in politics. I don’t justify it, but whose side are we on right now, Hildy’s or the lenders? That is what matters now. I opt for Hildy…..
Getting caught up in the hellish, endless game of these horrific loans is akin to traveling through Dante’s nine rings of Hell. Mr. Hildebrand has his detractors to be sure, but he occupies the high ground on this one. Lot’s of money at stake here so things are bound to get sporty. Buckle up!
What Hildy did for the former marketing director of a fee harvesting scam certainly is a head scratcher to me. I understand Hildy and his D ties. I will never understand his tie to mmm.
If anyone from around here never sees another documentary, then you must add this one to your list. MUST SEE stuff. As a general rule, all of the PBS documentaries are available to seen on the PBS website. The following one is not. Every now and then it cones up as available thru Youtube. Wont be long, and this one will be banned also. So, watch it while you can. It is important.
http://youtu.be/DAh6sGHDXv0
Poly – MMM is a narcissist and a sociopath. He played Hildy like he has played so many others over the past six years. He uses people for his personal gain.
Nobody had ever heard of MMM before 2010, so he needed Hildy and his “D” followers to get elected mayor. After he got what he wanted, MMM stuck it to Hildy and the Build It Downtown folks – and he’s been sticking it to others ever since.
He certainly didn’t fool me, and I know Poly cam on here regularly backing me up on the ‘kind’ of business acumen MMM had. He has certainly proved he can ‘seal the deal’ and he has ran the city Credit Card up to staggering degrees. I am still baffled someone as intelligent as Hildy would fall for his BS, but then I have to remind myself about why political consultants do what they do, $$$. That’s why I find the coffee house incident so ironic.
This is a business trying to make it in a bad area. It shows other businesses should find somewhere better. Basically, if vagrants can walk to it it’s not a good location. Shows me that anything intended for the Railroad Relocation area is doomed. This zone is meant for pawn shops, liquor stores, lottery casinos, and future marijuana outlets. Steve, I like your shop but let your lease lapse and find somewhere more middle class.
I think, with the benefit of hindsight and not being personally affected, that the coffee shop owner should have showered these people with kindness. Yes, that’s right. Give them 1/2 priced drinks and food, free refills tomorrow if they save the cup, rent some extra tables, go ’round and visit with them, really lay it on. They’d probably tell him all kinds of things he wants to know about what they are doing. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
First Steve gets the business of these people hanging around his shop, now gets a ton of earned media and scores huge points on public sympathy. He’s gotten TV, print, a hashtag on Twitter, you name it. Over the last few weeks he’s touted more record days on Josiah’s FB account, and yesterday he was talking of having to close down early because he’s running out of product.
I’m not sure any of us need to be advising Steve on how to play his hand. Seems he’s making a whole lot of lemonade out of these lemons.
And is there really any doubt about how this payday loan initiative will go down? After that minimum wage ballot passed by ten points, it’s clear that those not enamored with Republican rule have found a way to get populist, worker-friendly measures directly to the voters without effing around in Pierre. It’ll pass by a similar margin and then Chuck Brennan and friends will go to Pierre and try to find a way to undermine the vote, just as business groups did with the youth minimum wage BS.
HG – You hit the nail on the head. Do you know Hildy at all?
I think he should go an extra step and donate all of his windfall profits over the past couple of weeks as bonuses for his employees and a special donation to the Banquet and the Bishop Dudley House 🙂
speaking of chuck brennan,
http://dakotafreepress.com/2015/07/30/pawn-shop-radio-deal-in-court-brennan-acquiring-sunny-radio-and-usf-station/