The Tower

01/01/2022

Covid outbreak at the Barton jail being made public by the Barton Prisoner Solidarity Project. Full report here -- sharing is solidarity.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=641190260558266&id=107522527258378&paipv=1

11/12/2021

Some folks with HESN are currently keeping city trucks from being able to leave and clear encampments.

If you can; join them! They'll be there all day, and numbers are essential for effectiveness and safety.

05/02/2021

Interesting to see BPSP getting calls from Niagara now. As prisoners are transferred from prison to prison, the practice of organizing and striking spreads.

If you can, make a quick call tomorrow. They can only win on the inside if we are pushing from the outside.

**Phone Zap May 3! Support the Striking Niagara Prisoners!**

We can confirm that the hunger strike in the Niagara Detention Centre is just completing its third day! However, we spoke to someone there this morning who also shared that strikers are being targeted for repression by the institution. Today, COs entered their cells and stole their cantine items, saying they didn’t need it since they weren’t eating anyway.

This escalation of repression is very concerning, and we need to find ways to show prisoners in Niagara that they are not alone. Tomorrow, Monday May 3, please call the jail and demand that the administration negotiate with prisoners to meet their demands. Calling the jail and circulating news of the strike is a simple way of keeping the strikers safe from reprisals and putting pressure on the admin.

Call the detention centre at 905-227-6321 and press 0 to speak to an operator. You can either express your concerns to the operator or ask to speak to the superintendant, Tom Bradley. Please tell whoever you speak to that you support the prisoners' strike, think their demands are reasonable, and that they should be met immediately. The prisoners already submitted a letter to the admin outlining their three demands, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat them:

1)Address the serious problems with the new phone system:
-Create options for adding funds to prisoners' accounts remotely
-Introduce stop gap measures until then, such as unlimited free calls
-Remove the relationship tax that penalizes prisoners for calling the same number many times in one month

2) Restore visits and daily yard time

3) Allow the music and movie channels that are available in other detention centres

The Barton Prisoner Solidarity Project is focused on Hamilton’s Barton Jail. We are not intending to formally expand our work to Niagara, however when prisoners call us to tell us about actions, we will of course support them any way we can. We drove down to the Niagara prison today and held banners for the prisoners – it seems at least one range was able to see us through the blocked-out windows.

These demands and the actions prisoners take might seem like small things. However, prisoners across Ontario are building a practice of collective power that deserves our support every time. Standing by them when they resist is a crucial step towards a world without prison.

04/10/2021

UPDATE: Temporary Closure + Moving Plans!

As of April 2021, The Tower is temporarily closed and will be moving.

One of the key goals of the project from the beginning has been to provide infrastructure explicitly useful to support and further radical organizing in Hamilton for free. Over the course of the last year we have struggled with ongoing questions of how to best operate within a pandemic when so much of what we do as a physical space relates to people being able to gather. It has been increasingly difficult to strategize ways to function and be useful within the constraints of our current moment.

For the first 6 months of the pandemic, the space was transformed into a neighbourhood foodbank and distribution centre. Downtown East Hamilton Mutual Aid was able to run their project out of The Tower, and in doing so, provided much needed support to people in the area at the beginning of the pandemic. During this same period, The Tower’s printshop printed posters, flyers, pamphlets etc. for various campaigns such as Keep Your Rent amongst others, as well as printed and published different zines and books. However, moving into the fall much of this activity died down, and it became increasingly difficult to find ways to make use of the space and its resources.

Moving into the winter months, we began to question whether or not the expenses of The Tower could be justified. Our average monthly expenses vary from $1,500-$2,000, and it has become increasingly difficult to justify the use of the money when the space was going largely unused. While considering next steps for the project, our relationship to the landlord and property management company of 778 Barton Street East, as well as the condition of the physical building itself, began to drastically deteriorate.

While it’s nothing unique in this increasingly gentrified urban landscape, our landlord Andrew Sukhiani of “Andy’s Apartments” is a scumbag slumlord par excellence. If you want to get your class rage on you can read more about him here:

http://businessentertainmentshow.com/blog/la-real-estate-developer-andrew-sukhiani-business-entertainment-show.

For those who can’t stomach it (and we don’t blame you), highlights include tips from Andy on how to make it rich while working no more than 4 hours of a day, and how to go from being a predatory supplier of student housing in Waterloo to a “real-estate mogul” in Los Angeles. Somewhere along the way Wolverine Property Management became involved, giving both Andy and Wolverine a blame-loop to escape any kind of accountability for building repairs or emergencies. In fact, Wolverine is so practised in escaping responsibility there tenant portals have “how-to” videos instructing tenants on resolving their own maintenance issues.

The Tower’s location at 778 Barton St. East has always had its problems, however this past fall and winter these escalated to untenable heights. It would be impossible to go over everything wrong with the building, but here’s a brief snapshot: basement flooding, repeated and severe ceiling leaks, water in electrical receptacles, rats the size of cats, an electrical fire, three break-ins related to property management negligence, no heat for an entire winter, and ongoing sewage backups - including two that necessitated the use of biohazard suits and rubber boots.

The electrical fire led to the building being inspected by the fire marshal, by-law, and finally - the electrical safety authority. These inspections revealed a long list of major building code violations, serious safety concerns, and several “mandatory” work orders that have been delayed time and time again. After months of fighting - by ourselves and with tenants, for these issues to be addressed the Electrical Safety Authority finally delivered an electrical shut-off notice to the entire building due to non-compliance. When concerns about the shutoff were brought up with Robert Braun - president of Wolverine - he brushed it off, stating there would be no shutoff and all the authority wanted from them was a promise to address the issue - they didn’t care about the issue’s resolution.

All of this was incredibly frustrating for us, but the biggest source of stress and concern, was not The Tower, but all of the residential apartments and thus renters, that we share the building with. The conditions of the apartments are brutal, many are literally falling apart and barely fit for anyone to live in. Through our years of renting and sharing the building, we built relationships with our neighbours and know tenants have had serious concerns that have failed to be addressed by both Andy & Wolverine – missing door k***s, lights and fire alarms, fire and electrical safety issues, heat and hot water issues, flooding problems, pest problems, and more.

While there are - understandably - very few tenants currently left in the building we support those choosing to stay and fight for their homes. We encourage others to support them as well. With COVID and a severe housing crisis in all of Southern Ontario, we heavily discourage any calls for or attempts to shut down the building as a whole. That said, The Tower has made the hard decision to leave the space.

This certainly isn’t an end of the project, but rather a pause and maybe even a bit of reset. We’re going to take this as an opportunity to scheme and plan for the next steps of the project. Everything from The Tower is in storage, and once the pandemic wraps up in a way that a social centre can meaningful function again, a new space will open.

We’ve survived several waves of repression, countless far-right attacks, city-wide backlash, the scorn of local politicians, and much more. This certainly is not the end, just a result of the everyday bu****it of capitalism and the unavoidable impacts of a global pandemic. We have no desire to line the pockets of a particularly vile landlord when the space cannot be utilized fully – there are much better things for those resources to go towards.

We’re incredibly grateful for all the support we have gotten from people, without which this project would have never happened and certainly would never had survived. Keep an eye on The Tower facebook for updates, and if you know of any/see any space rentals that might work for us in the future, please let us know!

03/25/2021

Make your call in the next few hours to support defendants!

Check northshore-dot-info for details

03/24/2021

Call for Solidarity! Contact the Hamilton Crown’s Office on March 25th to ask for Blockade Charges to be Dropped!

The Hamilton defendants still facing charges from blockades last winter have an important court date coming up next month. In the leadup, there is a call for supporters to contact the crown attorney's office en masse this Thursday, March 25th.

While people charged for identical actions in other cities had light charges that were withdrawn, as usual, the Hamilton Police laid charges carrying up to ten years in prison and the Crown is set on taking people to trial.

The goal of this action is to remind the Crown attorney of the degree of public interest in the case and that folks from all over think the charges should be withdrawn. There's a script and more details in the post below.

https://dropthecharges.ca/2021/03/21/call-for-solidarity-contact-the-hamilton-crowns-office-on-march-25th-to-ask-for-blockade-charges-to-be-dropped/

03/18/2021

It's been a big week. The short version is the admin at Barton promised movement on a crucial demand by striking prisoners, the ability to order books from outside. However, they have not yet followed through. Negotiations are ongoing, but public attention is needed to remind the admin that stalling or dishonesty is an unacceptable way of dealing with the legitimate demands of Barton Jail prisoners. Here's the longer version:

The worsening conditions in the Barton Jail during covid outbreak were met by a coordinated hunger strike involving almost a hundred prisoners that began last wednesday. Supporters and loved ones maintained a presence outside the jail from Wednesday to Sunday, calling on the administration to negotiate in good faith to meet the prisoners very simple demands.

The hunger strike was suspended over the weekend because it seemed that these negotiations were occurring. Unexpectedly, the admin returned to a demand prisoners had made back in the summer -- for books to be allowed to be ordered directly from vendors and delivered to prisoners. A program of this type exists in most other provincial prisons in Ontario. As the admin has in the past, they told prisoners they were looking into the matter, but this time they gave a concrete timeline and promised an answer on Monday the 15th.

This was incredibly hopeful, and prisoners demonstrated good faith by suspending their strike. However, as usual, the admin didn't follow through: no answer Monday, no answer Tuesday. Prisoners formally and collectively reiterated their demands and reminded the admin of their promise.

The prisoners we spoke with believe the problem is one of communication between levels of management, that there is no process for actually engaging with with prisoners on an institutional level. They have requested a meeting with upper management as a way of getting around this problem, and they were told it would take place by Friday.

As you can imagine, it takes an immense toll to go without food for three days while spending 23.5 hours a day locked in a cell. It takes organization and self-discipline, all to be able to have a mutually respectful conversation about accessing basic things they never should have gone without. Visits, outdoor time, lawyer calls, sanitary products, books -- these are not things that should require collective action, and in fact do not in almost any other Ontario prison.

Prisoners continue to show good faith by accepting (for now) the admin's story that there is a communication problem. But they have stalled and lied about the same issue back in the summer, and prisoners understandbly reacted by resuming their strike and other protest actions. The lesson of the past year for the admin is clear: If you try to lie and stall when you promise negotiations, you get more and bigger actions.

Sorry we didn't update you all on this earlier, we wanted to see if the admin would follow through on the timeline they set. We will continue to update in the coming days and will offer some ways to support prisoners demands.

03/07/2021

"The only solution to the covid outbreak is to change the underlying health crisis of overcrowding -- and of incarceration itself. It's disgusting that the Barton admin can say that it's a health measure to lock people three to a cell with no room to take even a few steps for weeks at a time."

02/19/2021

Pride Defender Going to Trial - Drop the Charges!

It has been nearly two years since Hamilton Pride was attacked by white supremacists, homophobes and fundamentalist Christians. Nearly two years have also passed since a group of determined people stood their ground and drove the attackers out of the park. In the aftermath of that bloody event, the Hamilton Police showed their true colours by dedicating their efforts to tracking down and identifying Pride Defenders, while letting all but one of the attackers off the hook (despite having clear video evidence at their disposal). Of the six Pride Defenders initially charged, three of those people are still facing charges today.

Two of those three people have recently accepted a peace bond that will see their charges effectively withdrawn. The peace bonds will come with one year of probationary conditions, which is essentially the same punishment doled out to Chris Vandeweide who was caught on film committing multiple brutal assaults both at Pride, and again the following weekend in Toronto.

The last of the Pride Defenders facing charges is Barry, a respected Hamilton union organizer who attended Pride as an ally and is alleged to have stood up for his friends when he saw them being attacked. Barry is being charged with "assaulting" an extremist preacher named Phillip Ness-Thomas who is is part of a group called the ServantHOODS that preaches homophobia and misogyny at public gatherings, specifically targeting Pride events in recent years. Ness-Thomas showed up to the park that day with a group carrying 10-foot scripture signs decrying the sins of homosexuality, accompanied by goons like Chris Vandeweide who wore body armour. Needless to say, Ness-Thomas showed up at Pride as an agitator and aggressor.

Perhaps one of the most frustrating realities of Barry's charges is found in the pages of the Hamilton City Council's own $600,000 independent inquiry into the events at Pride, published in 2020. The report concluded – with no uncertainty – that the entirety of the violence was the fault of right wing agitators, that pride defenders were a diverse group of people who stood up for themselves and their community, and that the Hamilton Police bungled nearly every aspect of this incident. The report – written by a respected lawyer over the course of many months – interviewed 42 community members and 24 cops, concluding: “Standing up to and countering hateful groups by attempting to drown out their message is not unlawful. In fact, many Pride attendees should be commended for standing up for a more inclusive, diverse and caring community. To the extent that those Hamiltonians feel that the HPS conveyed a message that Pride attendees or Pride Defenders are partly to blame for the violence and hate that day, this is incorrect.”

Barry did nothing wrong that day in the park. He showed up to stand with the q***r community in Hamilton against violence from a group of delusional people who deliberately came there from across the country to scream at q***r families and engage in physical confrontation. The possibility that these charges could ever see the inside of a court room is enraging.

The Pride Defenders Solidarity Committee is calling for Barry's charges to be dropped, and are asking the Hamilton community and LGBTQ2S+ people from around the world to show their support for this cause in whatever ways you can. We only have a short time until his trial and we want to deliver a loud and clear message to the Crown Attorney. Please keep an eye on our social media pages for updates, help share our posts widely, and start brainstorming ways to show your support. Though Hamilton Pride 2019 was a long time ago, this isn't over until every Pride Defender walks free.

01/11/2021

"There are currently at least sixty people still facing serious criminal charges from the raids on Wet’suwet’en territory and the solidarity movement.

All successful movements face repression and have prisoners. More than avoiding repression, what matters is how we deal with it. We need to always be finding ways to show those targeted they are not alone — this makes it easier for them to get through it with strength and integrity."

(linked via twitter because north-shore remains blocked by facebook)

https://mobile.twitter.com/nscounterinfo/status/1348674443967606788

11/29/2020

"We demand transparency from Barton Jail about the outbreak, and for all prisoners being held on remand to be immediately released so they are not forced to be exposed to the virus. We also demand the reinstitution of visits -- cancelling visits does nothing to protect prisoners since they are held through glass and only adds to their isolation."

As of November 28th, we've received reports from multiple sources that the administration is trying to cover up at least 2 new cases of COVID-19 among staff at the Barton Jail. Management is outright denying to both prisoners and staff that there are new positive cases, while at the same time introducing new policies in response to the outbreak.

The changes include a new policy that prisoners are now required to wear a mask whenever leaving their range. Most infuriatingly, they have once again lost access to all visits, which were won back through a hard-fought struggle this summer. This is especially upsetting as we approach the holidays, when it can be extra hard to be apart from loved ones. In "compensation", management has raised the canteen limit from $60 to $90,which they did as well in the spring when a staff person tested positive. This disregards the fact that the only free way for prisoners to have money added to their canteen fund is when it is dropped off through in-person visits. Prisoners are left without any accurate information and are scared about the spread of the virus through the prison.

We have also heard that the guards disagree with the admin's choice to deny the outbreak. However, in any conflict between guards and management over safety, the prisoners will pay the price. Past disputes have caused long lockdowns and sharply worse conditions for prisoners. Unless the guards change their position and push for mass release of incarcerated people, we can't rely on their actions to improve things.

We demand transparency from Barton Jail about the outbreak, and for all prisoners being held on remand to be immediately released so they are not forced to be exposed to the virus. We also demand the reinstitution of visits -- cancelling visits does nothing to protect prisoners since they are held through glass and only adds to their isolation.

Details about a solidarity rally coming soon, check back in the coming days.

Prisoners are taking a serious risk by speaking out and breaking the admin's wall of silence. By amplifying their voices we can help keep them safe while also forcing meaningful action.

11/01/2020

Hi Folks!

Open hours are cancelled today, as we showed up to some heat and plumbing issues that need to be addressed.

Sorry for any inconvenience - and hope to see you next week!

10/25/2020

Open hours are on until 5 today!

10/03/2020

The Barton Prisoner Solidarity Project is passing on updates from our neighbours on the inside about where they are at going into the second wave of the pandemic. It's fu**ed up how little the administration has done to follow through on the promises they made in response to prisoner protest over the summer. And now we're in the second wave, folks inside don't even know if trials will get canceled again, and Barton can't even get it together to give people access to books.

Free them all!

Into the Second Wave: Barton Prisoners on past rounds of struggle and the challenges ahead

It's been two months now since the last hunger strike at the Barton Jail. To end it, the administration made a slew of promises, but have they been kept? This past week, we had long conversations with several prisoners who participated in the strike and in negotiations with the admin, and they expressed deep disappointment at the Barton Jail's failure to follow through on even basic promises. As well, there has been a steep increase in lockdowns in recent weeks, rolling back a gain from a previous round of struggle that saw an end to rotating lockdowns. And finally, as the second wave of covid hits, we talked with prisoners about masks, soap, and healthcare.

The rotating lockdowns were supposedly a covid measure, but prisoners correctly saw it as more to do with the convenience of guards. They won an end to this false measure with a mass, coordinated hunger strike in late July. But now, prisoners are being locked down for at least several hours most days, effectively reintroducing rotating lockdowns without calling it that. This has a lot of consequences for prisoners, but those we spoke to wanted to highlight one surprising one in particular: nail clippers.

Nail clippers are only available on Saturday mornings. If there is a lockdown on a Saturday, which is very frequent, then no nail clippers that week. One range recently went five weeks without getting them. And when they do come, there are only five or six available. The frequent lockdowns mean prisoners are left with the choice of not cutting their nails for months at a time or risking sharing clippers without sterilization.

Another update from the demands of the July strike: a key demand then was daily access to yard, as guaranteed by provincial legislation. One of the ranges we spoke to this week hadn't had yard time in two weeks, and another hadn't had it in a month.

But that has been far from the only demand of recent strikes. In August, prisoners struck again and this time a key demand was access to books -- access to both the existing library and for outside books to be permitted similar to other Ontario prisons. While library access was brought back, there's been no progress on outside books, in spite of vague promises. This is clearly within the authority of the Barton administrators, there is no good reason to deny prisoners access to books in this way.

Another hunger strike demand was for the canteen to be regularized to the standard of other Ontario prisons. Instant noodles were added right away, but further progress has been very slow, with bodywash added just this week. At the same time, previous covid-era additions like peanuts have now been taken away.

As a covid measure, the canteen limit was increased from $60 to $90, which went a small way towards addressing the exorbitant increase in canteen items over the past number of years. However, the increase has now been rolled back, despite the demand to reinstate it in the last strike and the admin's promise to "look into it".

Visists were also a high priority in the last strike. They had been canceled at the start of covid, but were brought back in response to collective action by prisoners in June. Prisoners are currently allowed 2 visits per week during scheduled timeslots, but the jail continues to apply its arbitrary new rule that limits each prisoner to only 3 pre-approved visitors. Prisoners have also experienced a huge number of scheduling errors, resulting in lost chances for visits. And even when prisoners and visitors are told that there are no timeslots available, those timeslots have ended up going unfilled. Limited visits also impacts prisoners' access to the canteen: in-person visits are the only free way for those on the outside to add money to a canteen fund.

Prisoners are watching closely as Ontario lurches into the second wave of the pandemic. During the last wave, all trials were canceled, meaning prisoners on remand -- 70% of all Ontario prisoners -- were left with no idea when their situation would change. Court dates started up again in a mix of digital and in-person setups, but as the second wave picks up, there's been no word on how the Province plans to handle court this time around. In a system that forces people to wait in jail for a court date, this leaves many people with complete uncertainty about their futures.

We call on the province to announce a clear plan for how courts will adapt to increased rates of covid-19. We also continue to call for all prisoners on remand to be immediately released pending trial.

Prisoners are also concerned about the seeming lack of readiness in the institution to deal with the second wave. Guards have become lax about mask-wearing, only putting them on when they enter the ranges -- however, an outbreak among guards would certainly spread to prisoners. As well, this laxity extends to guards sometimes not wearing masks when entering the range either. They are the main risk vector for covid entering the jail -- wear your masks!

Keeping people locked up during a pandemic, in institutions that don't care for their health, safety, and basic wellbeing, is a recipe for disaster. Prisoners aren't waiting around for us on the outside to recognize their humanity, they have been leading the way organizing for their own basic rights to be respected. But the Barton Jail administration demonstrates its impunity and disresepct by negotiating in bad faith -- we on the outside need to keep doing our best to hold them accountable to at the very least uphold the promises they make.

09/27/2020

Open hours are on today from 12-5. Bring a mask and come check out the library, the zine distro, and the apothecary.

09/04/2020

Two days until open hours restart at The Tower! Masks up, fresh zines in hand.

Since March, The Tower has been closed to the public and has instead been hosting Downtown East Hamilton Mutual Aid. However, starting on Sunday September 6, we will be resuming our weekly Sunday drop-in hours from noon to 5pm.

These hours are a chance to come in and browse the hundreds of books in our library, access herbal medicines from the apothecary, check out what's new on the zine rack, or just to chat with others about the rapidly changing context we find ourselves in. Because before taking collective action, we need to find each other, and although we have all done our best to do that on the internet, it's no substitute for physical space to meet and discuss.

We will be trying to do this safely. We ask that people who come to open hours wear a mask and regularly clean their hands -- we will have some masks and sanitizer available, but it would be nice if people could also bring their own. We will be limiting the number of people in the space at a time, so conversations might move to the sidewalk or downstairs if need be.

The Tower will also be available for private bookings starting in September. We make the space available to groups who share our values, so if you need an indoor space to hold a meeting, The Tower has a comfortable main floor with a screen and projector, as well as a spacious downstairs with a small kitchen. The main floor is barrier-free, but the two washrooms are in the basement. For more details about the space or accessibility, visit our website at the-tower.ca.

See you at noon on the 6th and every Sunday after that.

08/27/2020

Since March, The Tower has been closed to the public and has instead been hosting Downtown East Hamilton Mutual Aid. However, starting on Sunday September 6, we will be resuming our weekly Sunday drop-in hours from noon to 5pm.

These hours are a chance to come in and browse the hundreds of books in our library, access herbal medicines from the apothecary, check out what's new on the zine rack, or just to chat with others about the rapidly changing context we find ourselves in. Because before taking collective action, we need to find each other, and although we have all done our best to do that on the internet, it's no substitute for physical space to meet and discuss.

We will be trying to do this safely. We ask that people who come to open hours wear a mask and regularly clean their hands -- we will have some masks and sanitizer available, but it would be nice if people could also bring their own. We will be limiting the number of people in the space at a time, so conversations might move to the sidewalk or downstairs if need be.

The Tower will also be available for private bookings starting in September. We make the space available to groups who share our values, so if you need an indoor space to hold a meeting, The Tower has a comfortable main floor with a screen and projector, as well as a spacious downstairs with a small kitchen. The main floor is barrier-free, but the two washrooms are in the basement. For more details about the space or accessibility, visit our website at the-tower.ca.

See you at noon on the 6th and every Sunday after that.