Fire code enforcement singled out non-Italian coffeehouses to target minority clienteles

Evidence

“The shops selected were of course non-Italian,” Polsky noted in his essay, “although hardly any commercial establishment within blocks of the area doesn’t have fire violations.” The Gaslight and Café Bizarre were particular targets and café operators filed suit, charging “resentment by local residents against the influx into the neighborhood of certain minority and racially mixed groups.” — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 264

Categorization

• XREF: Direct test case for the reader’s gentrification-origin thesis: selective enforcement as gatekeeping of who gets to inhabit a neighborhood. Echoes redlining and racist zoning in other shelf sources.
• SEED: Article angle: ‘sedimented discrimination’ — how generically-named fire and liquor codes were wielded to police racial mixing in bohemian districts.