Fresh Loaf

The proposed nightclub as it now looks

There was another public meeting last night about the proposal to reopen the Vision nightclub in the old Cotton Club space on Peachtree Street and the AJC reports that the neighbors no likee.

We’d reported last week that the Midtown Ponce Security Alliance was trying to organize opposition and now it appears that someone with access to a bunch of random clip art has launched a new website, www.keepmidtownsafe.com. It doesn’t have much content yet, but it does have an online petition that’s collected about 300 names and it lists the next public showdown, a meeting of the Midtown Development Review Committee next Tuesday, Aug. 11 in the 999 Peachtree building. Battle stations, everyone!

(Photo swiped from keepmidtownsafe.com)

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After a three-year run as Atlanta’s nightclub of choice for ballers, b-boys and high-rollers, Vision served its last Red Bull and vodka on Aug. 5, 2006. The fabled VIP haven for everyone from P. Diddy to Britney Spears to many of the now-jailed principals behind the BMF drug-trafficking empire, the glitzy club effectively shifted operations to the sprawing (and now-shuttered) Compound, on the city’s Westside, then moved the party up to the Velvet Room on the northern Perimeter.

Since then, the only noise on that stretch of Peachtree Street, between 10th and 12th streets, has been the sound of construction equipment.

But the Gidewon brothers — the four press-shy siblings from Eritrea who rule Atlanta’s hip-hop nightlife — plan to change all that.

After months of community speculation, brother Michael has embarked on the application process to reopen Vision in the strip of buildings on Peachtree that once housed the old Cotton Club and Pasta Da Pulcinella locations. From the outside, the windowless buildings appear vacant and dilapidated. But, according to sources, the club interior is enormous and was built out nearly a year ago to the Gidewon’s trademark spare-no-expense standards.

Now that the Gidewons have finally filed for their permits, at least one civic group is determined to see they don’t get them.

“We don’t want the loud music, cruising, litter and shootings that go with this type of club,” says Peggy Denby, president of the Midtown Ponce Security Alliance. “We’re going to oppose this very loudly.”

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The Midtown Ponce Security Alliance hosts a special meeting tonight at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer to address the city’s crime problem. Atlanta City Councilmembers Kwanza Hall and Anne Fauver and Major Khirus Williams of the Atlanta Police Department’s Zone 5 will attend. The public is welcome.

Full release and additional details are after the jump.

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RATTLED: Little Five Points resident Kyle Keyser says his Dec. 17 mugging reflects how brazen Atlanta crime has become.

On Dec. 17, local video producer and blogger Kyle Keyser stopped at the Pizza Hut on North Avenue to pick up a late dinner for his roommate’s boss. Five men stood outside the pizza joint. One asked Keyser if he’d buy him some food. Keyser, sympathetic to the man’s hunger, said sure.

But the restaurant was closed, and as Keyser returned to his car, the five men surrounded him and pushed him against a nearby vehicle. One shoved a gun to his neck. They demanded money. Keyser said he didn’t have any but handed over his ATM card.

The men took Keyser’s cell phone and wallet and ordered him to lie on the ground. One suspect, pistol in hand, took aim.

“I’m gonna shoot him,” Keyser recalls the suspect saying. “I’m gonna shoot this motherfucker.”

“Don’t shoot him,” pleaded the guy who Keyser had offered to buy food.

“Naw,” the gunman said, “I’m gonna shoot him in the leg.”

Keyser, face down on the pavement, braced himself for a bullet. Instead, he saw five pairs of sneakers walk off. He sensed he had an exit, jumped in his car, and sped toward Midtown to call the police. He says bank receipts show the suspects purchased food with his card at a gas station a block away.

“OK, people get mugged and asked for money,” says Keyser, whose house has been broken into twice. “There’s a certain amount of crime that you associate with living in the city. It’s not forgivable, but it’s understood. You know it’s going to happen. What concerns me now is the spike in violent crime.”

Read the rest of this story.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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The Whole Foods that canceled a fundraiser for the homeless because of pressure from a nearby neighborhood association says it’s keeping its word.

“Whole Foods Market is honoring its commitment by donating $3,500 to the Earn-a-Bike program, and honoring the commitment to our team members, who feel very strongly about continuing with a donation,” writes Lesley Sifford, marketing team leader at the Whole Foods location on Ponce de Leon Avenue.

Rachael Spiewak of the Sopo Bicycle Cooperative, the nonprofit that helped organize the fundraiser, chimes in in a previous post’s comments section.

On Friday, September 12, Ponce Whole Foods contacted Taskforce and Sopo
to tell us that they are honoring their original commitment to dedicate
last Wednesday’s 5% Day to Taskforce for the Homeless. They are making
a fantastic contribution directly to the shelter, which will be spent
on opening and operating the bicycle shop where the Earn-A-Bike program
will take place. We look forward to continuing to partner with
Taskforce and other agencies who want to pursue access to cycling and
bicycle repair for all!

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The Sopo Bicycle Cooperative, a local nonprofit that helps people find and fix velocipedes, is asking its members to considerately urge Whole Foods to reinstate the fundraiser it canceled because of pressure from a Midtown neighborhood group.

According to a message posted on MySpace by Rachael Spiewak, Sopo’s executive director, the fundraiser to benefit the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless was organized by a cooperative intern from Paideia High School and an Americorps volunteer at the task force.

We all came together to create an on-site bicycle repair shop that provides access to an environmentally responsible form of transportation as well as opportunities to learn marketable skills. Skill building and reliable transportation are necessary for everyday life, and will help our friends at Taskforce access jobs and independent living.

Get Sopo’s take on the matter — as well as who to call at Whole Foods if you want them to know how you feel — after the jump.

(Special thanks to Christa at PecanneLog for the tip and message)

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What a difference a few hours makes.

The Midtown Ponce Security Alliance has called off its boycott of Whole Foods, according to another e-mail the neighborhood group sent to members. The grocery store agreed to cancel the fundraiser that sparked the boycott. (Five percent of today’s sales would have benefited the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless.)

From the e-mail:

MIDTOWN PONCE SECURITY ALLIANCE – Whole Foods calls off fundraiser

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We have confirmed that Whole Foods has suspended its plans to raise funds for the Metro Task Force for the “Homeless,” so we have called off the boycott. Due to overwhelming response from the community, they are not going ahead with the plan. It has become clear to Whole Foods that Peachtree Pine, operated by the Metro Task Force for the “Homeless,” generates substantial opposition from the surrounding community because of all the crime radiating from that building at Peachtree & Pine.

On the one hand we should not hold Whole Foods responsible because the Task Force presentation said the money would be used to buy bicycles for homeless people to get to and from work. The Task Force is slick, and can be stealthy in their public relations practices. It probably sounded like a great idea, but Whole Foods didn’t know what a nuisance and dangerous proposition that Peachtree/Pine presents to the surrounding community.

On the other hand, we had to act fast because we only became aware of this plan at 9am this morning – an hour after its launch. After verification and a flurry of phone calls, we made the decision to call for a short-notice community response. Had we known about this ahead of time, we would have attempted to derail the plan in the background before sounding an alarm to the community.

It so happens that we have been evaluating neighborhood-friendlier alternatives to address the homeless issue in Atlanta, but we are still working on this and will share our findings at a later date.

In the meantime, we wish thank those of you who responded by calling Whole Foods, and especially to Whole Foods for listening to their stakeholders. Therefore, we have called off the boycott of Whole Foods.

- Your Neighbors at the Midtown Ponce Security Alliance

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(UPDATE) The fundraiser has been canceled because of neighborhood response and the boycott has been lifted. See this post for details.

The Midtown Ponce Security Alliance, a vigilant homeowners group whose stance on crime teeters between neighborhood watch and Batman, has called for a boycott of Whole Foods today because the high-end grocery store is donating a share of today’s sales to the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless. (Whole Foods has a nearby location across the street from City Hall East.)

In an e-mail sent to members today and forwarded along to CL, the alliance says “In all likelihood, Whole Foods will furnish several thousand dollars to this “task force” so that crime and disorder in our community can continue.”

The group says nearby Peachtree Pine homeless shelter, which last year lost state and federal funding and would benefit from the donations, does not help the city’s  homeless population and merely allows “crime and disorder” to flourish in the gentrifying area. The e-mail points to two specific events — the recent killing of a Florida resident at a Midtown gas station and a resident who was assaulted with a brick.

Quite strange when you think of all the other good Whole Foods accomplishes, as well as the larger issue of what can be done to help break the cycle in which many homeless people find themselves.

The full e-mail to alliance members is pasted after the jump.

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