Panini and Company Cafe normally sells sandwiches to tourists in Lower Manhattan and the residents nearby, but in recent days its owner, Stacey Tzortzatos, has also become something of a restroom monitor. Protesters from Occupy Wall Street, who are encamped in a nearby park, have been tromping in by the scores, and not because they are hungry.

Tzortzatos’ tolerance for the newcomers finally vanished when the sink was broken and fell to the floor. She installed a $200 lock on the bathroom to thwart nonpaying customers, angering the protesters.

………

In interviews, [neighborhood residents] said they were especially annoyed that the organizers of the grass-roots movement  neglected to include portable toilets in their plan to bring down Wall Street.

I can’t say whether the protesters in NYC haven’t had the presence of mind to install several Johnny On-the-Spots, but I have been to Kiener Plaza in STL and seen the one that our protestors have. Seen it? Hell, I’ve used it and been grateful. But did I take a picture of it? Well … no. I’ll remedy that next time I’m there. Meantime the picture of a totally different Johnny will have to fill in.

And when you come to Kiener for next Friday’s rally, expect a huge crowd and one porta-potty. Use the facilities wherever you are before you leave for the rally.

Jeanine Molloff stole the bullhorn part of the show when protesters rallied, on Obama’s arrival in St. Louis, to urge him to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. What Molloff said wasn’t specifically about the pipeline, but since the rally was organized by Wash. U. students and Occupy STL, the crowd loved it because she summarized what the Occupy people stand for. Conventional wisdom is that the occupiers don’t have any specific agenda, but Molloff spelled out her idea of what they stand for, and they liked it. It’s true, they don’t have a formal agenda, not at present anyway. But they knew their ideas when they heard them.

The crowd of 150-200 people carried signs, chanted, and spoke their minds over the bullhorn.

At 4:15 Wednesday morning, Lt. Tim Sachs of the St. Louis police force approached the thirty plus Occupy STLers in their sleeping bags and told them that they had ten minutes to start packing up and leave Kiener Plaza or they would be issued summonses.  Within 6-8 minutes, at least 20 cop cars and 3 paddy wagons pulled up and 30 or more police officers piled out of them. The Occupy STLers were having a general assembly to discuss their options, but the police put an end to that, pouring into the the plaza and telling the occupiers to get their stuff on the sidewalk now.

The protesters began breaking down their camp. Matt Hanley, who was in charge of the food, saw to it that their supplies were taken to a nearby van. Of the 30-40 occupiers, some went to the sidewalk to avoid getting a summons for being on park property after curfew. Others stayed in the plaza and received summonses.

By 4:45, the police were gone. Some of the protesters were sweeping up. Hanley noted that someone with an official position for the St. Louis parks had dropped by on Tuesday and mentioned that the occupiers had Kiener Plaza cleaner than he had ever seen it.

Occupy STLers were pumped after the cops were gone. Kiener Plaza hasn’t seen the last of them.

I’ll have pictures and video of all the activity as the protesters get them to me. Some media arrived while the police were there, so look for segments on the local news. I’ll cover the press conference at 10:00 this morning.

Update:At 4:30 Wednesday morning, with cop cars surrounding them, the Occupy STL folk were pumped about their mission.

I stopped by Kiener Plaza in downtown St. Louis Monday and talked to a few of the new residents there. They’re organized: got tents set up and have received plenty of food donations; have tarps ready for the first rain so that everything they own won’t end up soaked and moldy; meet as a group to decide on community policies and plan events. Monday, for example, they coordinated with a group of Wash. U. students to protest the Keystone Pipeline Project. 150-200 people showed up outside the Renaissance Hotel where Obama would be, urging him to veto the project. Wednesday at 4:00, they’re coordinating with MORE to protest at the Bank of America at Eighth and Market. They will demand that Bad for America take responsibility for the damage it has caused to our neighborhoods because of foreclosures.

As for their community policies, they are being scrupulous about following the rules and being model citizens. Despite the roar of the waterfall, they don’t use bullhorns at their meetings because that would require a $300 permit. Another example: they want to leave the plaza cleaner than they found it. Bill Stough dropped by and handed Carmalene Jackson a broom and dustpan.

The word the protesters had as of Monday afternoon, though, was that sometime Monday night the police would be citing them for staying on the city property.

Occupy Wall Street came to St. Louis on Saturday–and to 85 other cities, Mike Kiepe (pictured in the first photo) was telling me as we stood in front of the Federal Reserve Building at 411 Locust. Protesters across the country say they are there for the 99 percent of Americans who are being slowly squashed by the wealthiest one percent. As Obama pointed out, if pointing out the greediness of the top one percent is class warfare, then we’re proud to be warriors.

Four Missouri Progressive Action Group members were the first on the scene, but that’s only because we and four other early birds didn’t check the Facebook page late enough to know that the bulk of the protesters were meeting first at a nearby bar before showing up en masse. The MOPAG people had to leave for their monthly meeting before the bulk of the crowd arrived, but before they left, STLToday stopped by, interviewed those who were there, and polished off their article with a quote from Susan Cunningham (on the left in the top picture).

Ironically, an EMT named Paul (in the plaid shirt) told us that he was the one who had gotten on the Occupy STL Facebook page and selected the Federal Reserve Building as the site of the protest, but then he and his wife, a nurse, missed the announcement of the general meeting first.

KMOV-TV perked up and took an interest:

http://www.kmov.com/templates/belo_embedWrapper.js?storyid=130870348&pos=top&swfw=470http://swfs.bimvid.com/bimvid_player-3_2_7.swf?x-bim-callletters=KMOVhttp://www.kmov.com/templates/belo_embedWrapper.js?storyid=130870348&pos=bottom

If you really want to know the latest on where the group is, go find them on Twitter. For one thing, it looks like the action is switching to Kiener Plaza–and to Bank of America close by.

And if you want to see the latest on Occupy Wall Street, look here,  here, and here–among a host of places.

Protesters prepare for a sudden rainstorm

Day Eight

The New York movement caught fire when Tony Baloney pepper sprayed those young women, the videotape went viral, and the media finally had to take up the story. Marie Antoinette could have told Anthony Bologna that sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. And that sometimes a bully’s action comes back to bite the entire top one percent in the ass.