For those that don’t know, Chunk Soup III (July 29, 2000) was a fundraising event put on by People Under The Stairs. These are some of my favorite promoter peeps because they never kept any of the money they made. Chunky Soup II (May 23, 1998, held at the Polish Canadian Club, raised approximately $4000 and gathered 4 large (4’X4’) boxes of foodstuffs.

I worked at Chunky Soup from behind the scenes setting up some lighting and sound for the benefit. The Police arrived on masse at approximately 3:30 AM in full riot gear to shut this benefit party down. There are a lot of things that stink about what the police did, it is also hard to piece it all together. These are some points I experienced or have been able to gather:

• This was done after 3:00 AM Shift change so as to not draw down on primary patrol cars during the ‘peak’ activity hours Sat night.
• Police Radio frequencies were NOT used to communicate between police vehicles. This ensured that no media would pickup the call on scanners and attend while police ended a benefit event.
• HAWKS flew around this event for an hour (over $1000/hr cost)
• The Police brought an electrician from ENMAX to kill power on the grid to site in case everyone decided not to leave (think about having to drag a CITY electrician out of bed at 3AM).
• There was at least 20 officers involved.
• Many officers did not know why there were there.
• Mike and Adrienne (the organizers of People Under The Stairs) are known ‘subversives’ to the Police and have there names on numerous Police files attached with many protests such as the WPC (World Petroleum Congress). None have ‘Police Records’.
• The Police AND Fire Department were notified with an event synopsis a week in advance of Chunky Soup. The Police were very uncooperative and offered no assistance to Mike and Adrienne. This was likely due to the sheer number of times their names have shown up in protests, etc.
• As one of our staff entered the building (11PM), one Police officer asked him if he knew/worked with ‘Adrienne Pan’. Just think about that for a second???
• Police threatened to ‘detain’ people if they did not vacate the premises.
• The Police officer investigating a noise complaint has complete discretion as to whether or not a party should be shut down. The Police Officer can simply ask that the volume be kept down or if they decide they don’t like you … well the party is over …
• This event was considered by many to be very peaceable.
• The police totally blocked all incoming traffic to the industrial park. They refused to let anyone in, even myself and I was responsible for sound equipment. This was at 4:00 AM.
• They had the area locked down just as tight as they did with the WPC (World Petroleum Congress) a few weeks earlier. This required a serious plan of action and must have been on the back burner for several days, if not a week.
• Mike and Adrienne have been singled out, fined and harassed by Revenue Canada since this event.
• Can you say "conspiracy theory"?