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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 12, 2016)
Vendors Page 6 o C EN TR A L C lt Y COFFEE ¡D\inh,iuell.3)o-foocL. Sourcing & roasting craft coffee to benefit programs at Central City Concern. IN STORES New Seasons Market, Whole Foods, Food Front Cooperative Grocery, Green Zebra, Chuck's Produce and Will Leather Goods. AT YOUR OFFICE Interested in serving Central City Coffee at your office? Get in touch with us and we can help you make that happen. 503.226.7387 ON OUR WEBSITE Buy Central City Coffee online and have it shipped directly to you or a friend. Follow our Facebook page for updates and specials. centralcitycoffee.org facebook.com/CentralCltyCoffee coffee@ccconcem.org Answers to puzzles on page 15 9 V L 9 P 8 8 Z 9 Z 6 P k L 8 Z 6 8 9 9 Z P 9 6 L 9 P 8 8 9 Z 8 6 1 8 8 Z 8 P 6 9 9 6 Z L 8 9 8 9 8 9 6 P L P V Z 8 V 8 8 9 L Z 9 6 8 L 6 9 P L 8 P L 9 9 Z Street Roots • August 12-18, 2016 marijuana. After the arrests, the hippie subculture moved from Lair Hill Park to other city areas. “It moved to Washington Park, then to LaurelhursL Then it w ent down to (Lovejoy) Fountain. Everybody moved down there. BY LEONORA KO S T A FF W R IT E R Then from th ere on it moved up to Uncle Andy’s which was a restaurant up there t was 1963 and Ron B ritt was a teenager (near) Portland State. And th e movement who had just moved from the Haight- ju st kept moving. Because you know Ashbury district in San Francisco to his everybody’s dealing drugs outside and the parents’ home on Corbett Street, Portland. cops ju st kept pushing everybody out of “I was in th e first hippie movement there. here,” said Ron. “The first hippie park was “It was beautiful at first. Then the hard Lair Hill Park, down on Barbur Boulevard, drugs came into it - heroin and speed - and right there by Corbett Street.” made it evil. I got strung out on heroin, In those days, Lair Hill Park was an area started using hard drugs,” he said in a with low rents and relative tolerance, low voice. according to Ron. The original Italian and Ron found help through Jewish immigrants were moving out and Portland’s first methadone clinic. \ artists and young people were moving in. “Doctor Larsen ran the New businesses sprang up in the area: the methadone clinic, CODA, Psychedelic Superm arket sold drug , down there across the paraphernalia, the M erchants of Warm provided counseling services to youth and Nature’s sold natural groceries, he said. “I was p art of the movement, the radical protests,” said Ron. “P rotest th e Vietnam war, wear flowers in your hair, smoke p o t” Lair Hill Park became an area with spontaneous jam sessions and communal soup gatherings. Ron reminisced, “It was a good time to live. The world seem ed like it was full of peace and love.” In 1968, rum ors th at 20,000 hippies were about to descend on Portland spurred th e City Council to take action. The police made dozens of drug arrests in the area. Ron said, “Yeah, I was selling bags of weed, taking LSD and sitting on the backstop of the baseball diamond. And getting busted by th e cops since I ■ was selling VENDOR PROFILE Ron Britt I bridge. I was the 125th person with the program back then. And then I w ent to Allied (Health Services).” He was on the streets for 30 years. After a bad cocaine episode, Ron decided to quit all hard drugs: “I decided I didn’t w ant to die. And so I just stopped.” Based on his years of experience, his advice to other vendors is to keep looking up, smile and be nice to custom ers. Ron usually sells the new spaper on Fridays near Hotel Monaco on the corner of Southwest Fifth Avenue and Southwest Washington S tre e t These days, he is no longer living on the streets of Lair Hill Park and has an apartm ent over Street Roots, thanks to Cascade Mental ■ Health. I -' A s f°r ^ e Lair Hill Park area, the neighborhood lobbied the city to iftclude I' it as one of the first lb/historical districts in ^P ortland. I Ron said: “It was all full f t f hippies, now it’s all yuppies. All the old hippies bought hom es there :ause back in those days ou could get a house for nothing. I “It’d take two arm s and fifteen legs to pay H for a house nowadays.” 'OB Ice Cream for Street Roots! Order ice cream! Preorder pints of ice cream online from Monday, August 1st to Friday, August 14th. Order at: street-roots.rayshopify.com $9 a pint. Proceeds go to support Street Roots, Ice cream party with Street Roots! Pick up ice cream! When: Thursday, Sept. 1st from 5-8 p.m Pints of ice cream will be available for pickup Where: 3540 N. Williams, What’s the Scoop? at What's the Scoop?, from Thursday, There will also be a limited quantity of pints available at September 3rd through Friday, the doorl What's the Scoop? will be donating 10% of sales September 11th, during the party!
