Alleged Newsstand Thief On Trial

In April 2006, Fatai King decided he wanted some newsstands. So he hired a crane and moved a handful of newsstands all around town; he took them to locations seemingly chosen at random.

King is finally on trial this week, and admits he hired a crane and took the newsstands. He said, though, he totally thought it was okay to do so.

The defense contends that King, who has pleaded not guilty, believes he had permission from the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections to move them. He claims the newsstands were abandoned.

But the owners say they weren’t abandoned, and a former L&I employee has testified she met with King many times. She described him as “overbearing but not pesty,” and she denies ever giving him permission to move the newsstands.

L&I often makes me so enraged it makes me want to commit some crimes, so I understand that. Things are about to get even better, though, as King takes the stand in his own defense today.

Phila. Man Stands Trial for Stealing Five Newsstands [KYW 1060]
Image by Ella Marie, Creative Commons license

City’s Seers Won’t Put Pox On City Afterall

Rejoice, people! The city has caved in to the doom and gloom prediction from fortune tellers and, once again, psychics can tell the fortunes of gullible people.

L&I shut down the psychics last week due a decades-old law banning fortune telling for profit. But the City Solicitor’s Office advised L&I to back off on Wednesday. It wasn’t a soothsayer telling John Street to beware the Ides of May, though. No, it was Manayunk fortune teller Monica Mitchell, who unleased something far more powerful than fortune tellers: lawyers.

The city backed off after Mitchell’s attorney, John Raimondi, filed a request last week for a restraining order and preliminary injunction on the ground that the statute could be invoked only in cases of fraud. [...]

Andrew Ross, divisional deputy city solicitor, said yesterday that while the law was useful in fraud cases, “we felt it was hard to say what kind of evidence might be needed to prove someone was pretending to tell fortunes.”

“I now present Exhibit A: This crystal ball.”

City psychics thrown a lifeline [Inquirer]
Monday: Fortune Teller Crackdown Spells Doom For Us All

Fortune Teller Crackdown Spells Doom For Us All

Acting on a tip from the police department last week, the city’s Department of Licensing & Inspections (aka the dreaded L&I) decided to take care of the one problem all city residents could agree needed fixing: Those stupid signs all over town that say “I BUY TRAINS” or “LOSE WEIGHT IN 30 DAYS” or “I BUY HOUSES.”

Ha ha, of course not! What L&I actually did was shut down the city’s fortune tellers. The state technically has a decades-old law preventing fortune tellers from, ah, predicting the future “for gain or lucre.” (Lucre? This law was clearly written in approximately 1789.)

It seems odd that the state has a ban on fortune telling when it also has a legalized lottery and casino gambling, but “making sense” is not something government does, ever. Cops haven’t arrested anyone and nobody’s been fined, but if these people attempt to return to their livelihoods, they will be. Deputy L&I commish Dominic Verdi tried to make it sound as if he was doing the city a great favor.

Most so-called psychics, he said, “are not little old ladies with kerchiefs on their heads” but clever con artists capable of stealing large sums - even life savings - from grieving or otherwise vulnerable people.

As opposed to casinos and the lottery, which…. well, whatever.

The Inquirer interviewed the owner of Psychic, the fortune teller on Walnut Street — naturally, near the head shop Wonderland — who said he had a license from the city and paid taxes. He also said he was raided by the Major Crimes Unit, because, you know, he’s really a danger to the community. (You would think the police would use the fortune tellers to predict where the next murder was going to be!)

“Shouldn’t they be cracking down on rapes and murders, not palm readers?” he asked. He also demanded to know whether tea-leaf readers in Chinatown were also being shut down. He doubted it.

“They’re discriminating against Gypsies,” he said, although he said he was born and raised in Philadelphia.

Finally, he noted that critics “considered that Jesus was a psychic, a fortune-teller, and they crucified him.” He saw a certain parallel. “Look what they want to do with the fortune-tellers,” the man said. “We might be coming to the end of the world.”

Gee, thanks a lot, L&I. Because of you, the fucking world is going to end. I hope you’re happy.

Who knew? An old law shuts psychics [Inquirer]

Apple Baggies/Coin Holders Gets Shop Shut Down

Last week, in a criminally underreported story, Northeast Philadelphia headshop Artifax was raided by the police and shut down. Two employees were arrested.

This seems similar to the events last year when Spencer’s in Bucks County was raided by the police for selling bongs and marijuana t-shirts. Officers made the raid after buying “apple baggies,” which the cops consider drug paraphernalia, even though they were marked as “coin holders.” (Yeah, I’m a little confused on all fronts here.)

But that’s not all!:

Artifax has been in business at the same location at least since 1982. A city business permit issued that year itemizes what the shop was allowed to sell, including pipes, bongs, tobacco products, pipe screens, scales, magazines, apparel and gifts. The document includes “drug paraphernalia” among the permitted items for sale.

Although the business permit was still valid at the time of the raid, it is unclear whether L&I defines “drug paraphernalia” in the same context that police define the term.

That’s right! L&I somehow gave them a permit allowing them to sell drug paraphernalia. At least in name. I love this city.

Police think NE ‘head shop’ was one toke over the line [Northeast Times]