[news] Tenant Action Group Steal A Thon

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ARTICLES FROM THE BELLEVILLE INTELLIGENCER WEBSITE

TAG hopes to bag free groceries
By Jeremy Ashley
Friday, April 23, 2004 - 10:00

Local News - The latest in urban guerrilla protest tactics?  How about
stealing from supermarket shelves to protest welfare and disability rates.

It’s all part of an upcoming era of “militant attacks” planned by the
Tenant Action Group, a collective of local agitators with ties to the
Ontario Common Front and the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.

In a statement issued to local media Thursday morning, TAG organizers
detailed a ‘Steal-a-thon’ campaign, which is purportedly set to target
Belleville grocery stores this spring in protest of welfare and disability
rates in Ontario.

According to the memorandum, the event will involve “unannounced ‘food
grabs’ where people in need will enter local grocery stores en masse and
help themselves to what the provincial government refuses to provide.”

Members are “willing to engage in civil disobedience in order to help
people in need provide for their families,” the release stated.

“This action is part of an Ontario-wide campaign organized by anti-poverty
groups that seeks to have the Liberal government increase welfare and
Ontario Disability rates by 40 per cent.  The announcement prompted city
police and surrounding OPP detachments to issue warnings to merchants
about the initiative.

Reached by The Intelligencer, TAG organizer Katharine Davis said
encouraging members and the public to commit a criminal act is just a
taste of what’s to come from TAG in the months leading to an Ontario
Common Front ‘Raise the Rates’ protest in Toronto this summer.

“It is going to be militant attacks ... I don’t mean physical, but we are
upping the ante and we are taking more drastic measures. We are talking
about people getting serious about the state we’re in. And if that’s
uncomfortable for people, well, it’s been uncomfortable for us for a
really long time.”

Davis said MPP Ernie Parsons lied to TAG leaders when the group met with
him late last year at Queen’s Park to discuss potential increases in
welfare and disability rates.

“What are the options? People are still hungry and the rates aren’t being
raised.

If there is a community outcry, let’s hate the system and not the players.
Sure they can arrest us for stealing food to feed our families ... but the
real culprit here is the Liberal government.

“Believe me, the next time the Liberals put on a food function, seems to
me that that is an interesting target to look at as well.”

As well, Davis said TAG members wrote letters to several grocery stores
recently, outlining problems facing people living with lower incomes and
asking for support.

“We didn’t get a phone call back ... we got nothing.”

Food banks and social agencies are not filling the gap for the low income
earners, she claimed, and targeting a successful private business is a
“necessity” to get the group’s point across.

“Yeah, I wish it wasn’t (targeted against) the big businesses, but
something tells me they’re not suffering in the same way and unfortunately
we’re not given a lot of options here — it’s not like we’ve been given a
better target.”

According to Davis, after food is stolen from the grocery stores, it will
be taken to a distribution point where it will be handed out to people in
need.

She refused to confirm dates and times of the attacks, saying to do so
would be “self-defeating... and the plan and the action is to not make it
that easy to stop us.

“It’s a day-to-day campaign and all we’re doing now is making it very
public and making it very open and encouraging and organizing those
actions for people who are desperate enough.

“People are taking the drastic measures of stealing things and what we are
doing as a group (are) supporting it, encouraging it. We’re encouraging
these types of actions... in Belleville.

“And so if the grocery stores and people are uptight about it ... so now
we’re sharing in this disgusting environment that Ontario has become where
people are forced to do it.

“I think it’s important for people to understand where these people are.”

ID

Organizers could face criminal charges
By Jeremy Ashley
Friday, April 23, 2004 - 10:00

Local News - Organizers of a ‘Steal-a-thon’ protest could face criminal
charges if the event moves ahead as planned, city police Chief Steve
Tanner warns.

Thursday morning, the Tenant Action Group issued a statement warning that,
in upcoming weeks, local grocery stores will be targeted as part of a
co-ordinated “en masse” effort to steal merchandise to feed the hungry.

According to the release, the strategy is in retaliation for the Ontario
government not raising disability or welfare rates, stating that, “...TAG
is organizing unannounced ‘food grabs’ where people in need will enter
local grocery stores en masse and help themselves to what the provincial
government refuses to provide.”

The news sparked immediate action from city and surrounding provincial
police detachments, who warned merchants throughout the region to be aware
of the potential activity.

Police Chief Tanner said city police “received information through another
agency that there was a provincial TAG initiative ... to target different
locations for what they termed a ‘steal-a-thon’ sometime Friday (today).”

Belleville is one of the first cities in the province to be targeted for
such an event, Tanner explained, which prompted officers to issue warnings
to local grocery stores and other merchants in the area.

Provincial police out of the Napanee detachment also issued a advisory to
merchants, saying the event was scheduled to take place today at a number
of outlets “in and around the Belleville area.”

If the event moves ahead and charges of theft are laid, Tanner said TAG
organizers could face charges under the Criminal Code of Canada — if an
investigation is initiated by city police.

“... You could look at charges along the lines of conspiracy. You can have
a conspiracy to commit a criminal offence, so you could have someone who
is organizing this, who never takes part in it, but they could technically
be part of the conspiracy.”

TAG spokesperson Katherine Davis acknowledged a possibility that she and
other colleagues could face theft and conspiracy charges.

“It is definitely a possibility ... but you’re kind of coming at it from a
different way,” she explained.

“When we sit around and organize these types of events ... everybody’s
response is kind of common — we all steal shit from the grocery stores
anyway and we do it because we don’t have a lot of options.”

Despite all the attention the planned activity garnered, Tanner said it
should not be cause for alarm, noting that police are on hand to respond
to calls for assistance.

“I think there are a lot of ways in a democratic country that people can
get their points across through protests or whatever they choose. But to
break the law and commit theft is not the way to go.”



WHIG STANDARD
Police brace for ‘steal-a-thon'
By Tamsin McMahon
Friday, April 23, 2004 - 07:00

Local News - Police in Belleville and Napanee are stepping up security
after getting a tip that a tenant rights group is planning a mass
“steal-a-thon” today to protest the provincial government’s refusal to
raise welfare rates.

Tenant Action Group out of Belleville issued a news release yesterday
saying it was putting area grocery stores on notice that it is planning
“unannounced ‘food grabs,’ where people in need will enter local grocery
stores en masse and help themselves to what the provincial government
refuses to provide.”

The group, which has staged sit-ins in welfare offices, said it had no
choice but to go out and steal food after what it called a string of
broken promises from the Ontario Liberals regarding social assistance.

The group met MPP Ernie Parsons four months ago asking that the government
raise rates for welfare and disability payments.

It elicited a promise from Parsons to raise disability rates at the start
of this year, but has so far not seen any action.

“If the provincial government forces welfare and Ontario Disability
recipients to scrape out an existence on starvation-level benefits, then
we are left with little choice but to steal food for our children to
survive,” the group wrote in a news release.

Organizers didn’t return phone calls by The Whig-Standard yesterday.

Napanee OPP received a fax of an e-mail Wednesday afternoon sent to
Belleville Police talking about the group’s plans and calling the protest
a mass steal-a-thon, said Const. Sheri Wanamaker.

Police went to six or seven stores in the community to alert staff of the
planned protest.

“We’ve gone to our larger stores and forewarned them that this might
happen,” she said.

“Fortunately here in Napanee we don’t have that many large stores.”

Wanamaker said the e-mail given to OPP spoke of a highly organized
protest, with some participants even offering food and accommodation to
protesters coming from out of town.

There’s little police can do until an actual crime is committed, she said,
but OPP have asked patrol officers to give some of the possible target
stores extra attention.

“Realistically that’s all we can do,” she said.

Belleville Police say they’ve added extra patrol officers today in case of
any problems with the planned protest, said Staff Sgt. Al Portt.

“We just don’t know what the day will hold,” he said. “We’d rather have
too many than too few.”

The Quinte Mall didn’t know whether it was a planned target for
protesters, but general manager Andrea Brady said the mall has hired duty
police officers and extra security just to be sure.

Announcements of the steal-a-thon had made their way onto Belleville radio
stations yesterday and stores were already calling police to ask them what
they knew of the protest, Napanee’s Wanamaker said.

“So word is travelling fast and hopefully it’s a good thing,” she said.


FOR MORE ON THE TENANT ACTION GROUP:
www.ocap.ca/tag
www.freewebs.com/joeyonly