Who's the biggest 'Narc'? An investigation.

Meth poop lady vs. Offended by BBQ lady?

I don’t like that the innocuous name ‘Karen’ has turned into shorthand for “annoying dangerous whiny (usually but not always white) woman.” It’s sexist that there’s no male equivalent and also my best friend’s mom’s name is Karen and she’s a lovely woman.

So let’s go with the gender neutral “narc.” Who’s the biggest narc? Michelle Tandler, the meth poop lady, or a woman who took to Twitter yesterday to indignantly rant about encountering a BBQ stand in the park?

We may never get to the bottom of this. On the one hand, Tandler thinks dogs are getting addicted to meth from eating meth-laced feces. How do you top that? Well, five days ago she literally advocated for mob lynching.

But here’s Sonya Shaykhoun, Esq, coming in strong:

Yesterday I was coming back from tennis in Riverside Park and came upon this ad hoc unlicensed food stand. They were calling out to people to buy from them and I asked them, “where’s your permit” cuz we all know the permit has to be displayed. Well, the woman in blue got belligerent and started filming me and refused to show me her permit. She started filming me and getting increasingly aggressive. I called her a name.

Seriously? Are you a city small business inspector? I demand to see you educational and professional history as a lawyer. NOW, or I’m calling the Bar association.

It gets worse.

Then I called 911. what happened with this? The officers never called me back. This was at the 99th street entrance. We have beautiful parks, if you see ppl defacing them by setting up illegal stands, call the police. Time to take back our beautiful City.

The post included a picture of the vendors.

I do find it funny that she stood around waiting for the cops and they never bothered showing up. But sometimes they do show up. Months ago they arrested a terrified older woman for selling churros on the subway. Outraged bystanders filmed the arrest. Absolutely no one around was hankering to see this woman behind bars. At the station, she was apparently strip searched, a humiliating procedure officers are only supposed to perform if they have evidence to suspect that an arrestee is hiding hard drugs or a gun.

Unlike the meth poop lady, Shaykhoun has previously stayed under the radar, but her material goes back months:

Like the meth poop lady, Shaykhoun won’t back down. She’s still fighting with people on Twitter.

“Okay, let's turn lemons into lemonade. Selling food to the public without the necessary permits is not only a health risk, but it's also prohibited. If you need help with your food license applications, I am happy to help you. If you are financially disadvantaged, we can work out a deal. Feel free to email me or call me with your licensing requirements. Many thanks, Sonya”

This one is a toss up—Tandler too is clearly trying to turn being a narc into a full-time job, I expect to see her on Fox News any day now.

When I lived in San Francisco in the mid-aughts Mission and Valencia streets boasted a thriving food scene of permit less vendors. Do you even know how many drunk people’s lives were saved by vendors selling bacon wrapped hot dogs till late at night? Or by the heroic woman known as the “tamale lady” who made her rounds through all the bars at night selling her wares?

Yes an argument could be made that a lack of regulation might result, in say, labour abuses, but most of them were family-run. And — and this might shock Shaykhoun, but you can choose whether or not to subject your intestinal tract to a hot dog fried in bacon grease wrapped in bacon in a bun cooked in bacon grease and topped with Mayo and onions and peppers cooked in bacon grease. Oh my god. I try not to eat much meat these days but I trust the BBQ these ladies were selling in the New York park more than the “meat” at a suburban Subways or Taco Bell.

People move to cities because a certain amount of rule breaking and chaos lead to unexpected, fun, rewarding, experiences. Narcs try to ruin this dynamic. Narcs ruined the NYC institution of “show time” when teenagers would jump on the train and perform delightful aerobic dances. The actual cops starting handing out summons and now you never see it anymore.

I was going to say, stop trying to turn cities into Disneyland, but even Disneyland is triggering to the right-wing snowflakes. For privileged people the narcs just erode at the vibrancy of the city. For poor people and poor people of color an encounter with a narc might be jail—or death. Jordan Neely’s funeral was today.