SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Dori: Camp in Seattle for Memorial Day weekend
May 24, 2018, 3:25 PM
Dori Monson built a tent office on a Seattle sidewalk to see if city officials would order him to take it down. (KIRO Radio)
(KIRO Radio)
It’s Memorial Day weekend and the weather is supposed to be beautiful — so let’s all camp out in Seattle.
RELATED: Dori builds a tent office on the sidewalk
I have a great idea that listener Valerie sent in via email. I can’t officially endorse this idea because it could potentially be dangerous, with all of the drug addicts out there on the streets. But, if some of you decided by yourselves that you’d like to camp out by the water at Green Lake or Gasworks Park or Golden Gardens, I would love to hear about your experience. I’d be fascinated to hear if Seattle Police would treat you any different than they treat the heroin addicts.
“Hey Dori, I have a great idea for the working folks of Seattle,” Valerie wrote. “The long Memorial Day weekend will soon be upon us, so let’s camp Seattle. No need to drive far away and pay for a campsite — we can just pitch our tents on the waterfront, by the Space Needle, or even in front of City Hall. Why not? Everyone else does. Image this — on Friday afternoon, no commute traffic, no stress. Just find a nice spot to call home for three days, get some steaks for hibachi, and relax the whole long weekend away. And on Tuesday morning, freshen up at Starbucks and off to work we go. Oh, and we won’t have to worry about leaving our garbage there — the city workers will bring a dumpster to clean up after us. What a life. So what do you say? Let’s camp Seattle.”
The weather will be great and there are so many beautiful spots. Gasworks Park would be very romantic — that’s where most of my early dates with my wife ended.
The 14th Amendment says that the laws apply equally to everyone. But we know that in our city that’s not true. You can lie down in the middle of the street for six hours and face no consequences, but if you jay-walk from the office to Starbucks, you get a ticket. There are hundreds of encampments all over the city, including near the tourist hot-spots, yet when I built my sidewalk office, the police showed up within hours asking me to move it.
I’d be fascinated to know — although I’m not asking anyone to do this — if you chose to camp out in Seattle on Memorial Day weekend, what would happen to you. They would have to give you 72 hours’ notice to move, just like with the addicts. By then, the three-day weekend is over.
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