trash bags required

I was driving down MLK Jr. Blvd this morning at 4am. I needed some Starbucks before my drive out to Spirit Mountain Casino. I go to pull into the drive thru and am blocked by what looks like a bunch of homeless people wearing trash bags. There are tents all over the sidewalks. The first thought that goes through my mind is that the homeless of Portland are staging some sort of protest. Let me remind you it is 4am and I have not yet had my latte. Then I notice a lighting truck and decide that it is Hollywood filming again. I get through and head towards the ordering screen when a group of teenagers informs me that Starbucks does not open until 5am. So I proceed through the drive thru only to be blocked in by three police cars. The police are talking to a group of people sitting in camping chairs. It is at this point that I come to the realization that these idiots are camped out for the Rose Festival Parade!

Did the City of Portland even consider that people would camp in tents for the parade before they decided it was unlawful for them to tape off their spots?

But even more ridiculous are the people that actually pack up the kids to spend a Friday night sleeping in a tent on one of the most busy and unsavory streets in Portland! Did they consider that they may be killed in their sleep by a drunk driver? Or some junkie might decide to go in their tent and rob them?

I don't know if these people are aware that only a few months ago two young adults were hit by a drunk driver at The Dunes Nightclub and pinned under the vehicle. I personally witnessed this incident. It was a Friday night. I was driving my cab and saw a young couple pinned under a volvo station wagon. I thought they were dead. It was extremely morbid! Luckily or maybe unluckily they were not dead. The female had to have her leg amputated. She may think that she would have been better off dead?

I am not trying to rain on anyones parade...I don't have to. Mother Nature all ready did!