Scientology's annual new years event was at the Shrine Auditorium tonight. They always try to abuse Special Event Permits claiming they can deny access to public sidewalks and streets to anyone they do not like; it did not work this time.

Three of us protested peacefully on the sidewalk as the unloaded buses from PAC full of public members and Sea Org Staff. When we walked on the sidewalk, OSA WUS member Wayne Carnahan told the LAPD special detail assigned to the event that the sidewalk was closed. The sergeant in charge of the detail told him "it's not closed until I see a permit." I offered the officers my own copy but they wanted to see OSA's.

The sergeant then told me they had a permit to close the sidewalk but I showed him the terms of the permit that state the general public can not be denied access to any street at anytime and I explained these permits are used for farmers markets. The sergeant told OSA that we could be on the sidewalk despite their objections. OSA made a quick huddle and Kendrick Moxon appeared but their appeals to the police made no difference: free speech won.


VM tents behind the Exhibition Hall for the aggressive sales pitch after the event.


They paid LAPD over $3200 to be there for this event. LAPD was reasonable and professional.


OSA was not happy about sharing the sidewalk.


Event attendees got the message.


With the event underway inside, we ended another successful protest.

Great job, mark.

Nice to see free speech (and common sense) won the day this time.

Btw, Chuck Beatty remarked in this unrelated thread....
( viewtopic.php?p=423350#p423350 )


Edit:
Chuck talks about the attempt, plus other stuff in this video with Tory (uploaded 28th Dec 11).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6p02aha0Dk
(from about 3m15s)

Nice job.

Did you guys have signs?

[quote="I'mglib"Did you guys have signs?[/quote]
Yes, we had protest signs.

I noticed the Int Base buses did come, but I couldn't watch them unload, they drove into the north side entrance, which is where when I used to come from Int to LA on those buses, we came and entered the Shrine for the event.

The PAC staff buses enter along the south side of the Shrine, the Int Base buses enter the north side of the Shrine.

The front entrance was for public only, and a special gauntlet, zig zag of fencing with rubber tarp blocking all views into the Shrine entrance.

I walked 3 wide circles around the Shrine, for over an hour, planning whether to come in the PAC staff side (because the public bused from the complex also entered on that side), or to enter the side of the USC parking garage where most public Scientologists used.

I figured holding off until the event started or just before it started, and come in with the crowds coming in fashionably late, would be easiest.

Tom Provenzano on the phone told me "You'll get in! Don't worry."

I made it through the outer fencing, through the zig zag in the fencing, got my ticket from a couple of ladies handingout tickets to people who didn't have tickets, got through the actual ticket taker, got through a pair of OSA watch people, and I was halfway across the large first inner entrance area, when Donna Morrow of OSA Int walked up to me, I knew she knew me, and she asked the tell tale question that told me the jig was up, she asked:

"Where are you onlines?"

I said "ASHO Fdn, I'm a freeloader." She did a hand movement, and directed me to move to the side, I did.

She said "What's your name?"

I said, "Chuck Beatty".

She smiled and nodded knowingly, I was caught, oh well! What next?

She said politely the event was not open for me to attend.

She did a hand movement, and within 2-3 seconds Kirsten Caetano (OSA Invest and Security czar), who looked trimmer than her recent photos where she looked pudgy, she looked like she's trimmed down, she came over and said "You know you are not welcome here. "

I said, "I didn't know that, no one ever told me that."

Big mistake, I shouldn't have even said that.

She then made it very clear, for the whole time until I was escorted off the property, "Chuck, you are NOT welcome here. Please leave," and she directed me where to walk out, and Donna also was standing there, I looked at Donna, like Donna she [Kirsten] is overreacting, I am trying to be nice and not cause any stir, and just leave like you both asked! I thought

Wow, I thought. Kirsten's really losing it, she's turned on some automatic mental meltdown anger show she's somehow got programmed into exhibiting and which she's drilled a few zillion times so this is like a triggered mental meltdown.

I'm going, I'm going, just let me go now, I get it Kirsten, I get it that I can't go into the event, okay, I'll go, just let me walk out, I don't want to cause an upset, I realize this is your time to celebrate your accomplishments, I wasn't going to upset anyone or cause any trouble, I just wanted to see the event, see the state of the membership, these were my thoughts as I tried to smoothly retreat out the exit Donna kindly pointed me to exit. I just thought this, kept silent, other than ask Donna "Which door should I exit?"

Still Kirsten wasn't through her triggered mad meltdown, she raised her arm and snapped her fingers practically, at the Shrine employee guard, who dutifully came over.

Kirsten just again blurted out to me, with the Shrine guard looking on, like she was putting on some kind of show for him, she angrily continued and repeated the same thing, "Chuck, you are not welcome here. In fact, you are not welcome in any church anywhere in the world. Chuck, did you get that?" I said I did, and tried to get the heck out, calmly without causing any more upset.

But Kirsten just kept going, she was in turned on pissed off, having to prove her angry point mode, repeating this over and over.

"Chuck you are not welcome here."

(Okay, I thought, just let me go, already.)

Since Donna had steered me first to exit the same way I came in, and because more people were streaming in that single door, it was impossible for me to go out the exact door I walked in.

I calmly waited for a break in the people streaming in, and then tried to cross the stream to an exit to the left, and finally headed to that left side door and got out.

On the way out, Kirsten stopped me again, and said "Chuck, I want you to know that you are not welcome in any church anywhere, is that clear?" "Yes" I said, totally clear. The guard looking on, me being totally compliant with Donna's directions, being meek and calm, the guard saw Kirsten clearly was overly unnecessarily being rude.

I made a tiny few steps out of the door and onto the red carpet, and kindly, the Shrine guard came up to clarify something with me.

The Shrine employee guard, the one Kirsten had earlier snapped her fingers while we were still all inside, calling that Shrine security person over, to escort me out, and I was willingly doing the obvious right thing in attempting to smoothly leave, so that employee had no beef with me.

The guard reassuringly momentarily pulled me aside and close to my face and ear said "You don't have to follow any of her [Kirsten's] instructions, sir. All you have to do is move to the edge of the property, which is about 22 more feet."

Good smart guard for the Shrine in my opinion, made me think of Doug Owens' stories about how LA PD react to Scientology's over-gestapo reactions in public, the LAPD are tired of it, and this Shrine employee was similarly tired of behavior like Kirsten's.

But again Kirsten came towards me, and Odo Huber, the PAC security guard came quickly over, and Kirsten told him to escort me to my car.

Kirsten or Odo asked me where my car was, I shouldn't have answered, I should have just taken the Shrine guard's advice, I guess he's seen this type of display before, his advice I should have simply took and departed, and NOT even listened to anything Kirsten said further.

Odo and I chatted all the way to my car, I told him his parents were good people, since I've known both his parents for years.

He asked a few questions, to which I told him best I not answer, as my thoughts were I be nice to Odo, and someday he'd see there are plenty of us ex members who aren't evil people and being nice to them actually causes more cognitive dissonance, and helps them decide to get out to the nicer behaving people in the outside world compared to the crazy irrational behavior they live inside the movement.

The car I borrowed has a "theta" license plate, special plate with a Scientology message on it, and he laughed. "Are you staying with her?" Odo asked. I said yes. PAC Security knows license plates of their "enemies" and some of the "enemies" are more saner Scientologists than the trigger conditioned out of control hornets like Kirsten demonstrated.

Sad, but this all means to me that it will be some years before Scientology changes it's cult overreaction stuff.

When regular citizens can attend any Scientology events, or when lame/tame "SP" ex members like me, who would willingly behave at any Scientology event (I had no intention to disrupt a single parishioner, I knew how to behave at their events and was intending to do so), it looks like it will take some major changes.

Donna Morrow is a nice OSA watch person though. She and I made some friendly eye contact, Kirsten is about the age of a daughter to either me or Donna, and it's so inappropriate and unnatural for these younger generation Scientology staffers who go into these hornet behavior defensive tantrums in public. The public security and police even dread seeing this behavior.

Oh well.

Anyways, in the hours I was walking around the Shrine, I spoke to several Sea Org members anyways, people who I chatted with while walking around the Shrine, before the event.

The Annex was open at 4:30pm, and public were encouraged to come and mingle and get fleeced before the event, I guess.

After I was ejected, I met up with Doug Owens and the other protestors to debrief and have a laugh about it all.

I forgot to do what I also wanted to do, which was wait until late, and see if the PAC RPF members came over to break down the Annex part of the Shrine like they typically do after every New Year's event. Oh well. If someone else wants to try catch the PAC RPF off guard, the other time to do so is AFTER the New Year's Event, when the PAC RPF will show up, in a bus, along the south side of the Shrine. They'll walk through the south side rolling chain link fence gate, and go in the truck east side entrance of the Annex to the Shrine, and do the table breaking down, and also do the stage props loading to the Shrine basement.

The breakdown of the Shrine takes hours, usually it's a 3-4 hour breakdown, and starts around midnight, and then about 4am, there's a snack break, and the PAC RPFers doing the Shrine breakdown will get snack leftovers from the event snacks that the public didn't gobble up during the after event party at the Annex that the public attend.

Ah, the life of the Scientolgoists in LA, the public, the staff, the RPF, the OSA watch teams, that play their drilled roles keeping the evil "SPs" like me out of their events.

What will be momentous and worthy of news, will be when Scientology lightens up, lets in good natured people like me to their events, that will be the day!

Nice work, Chuck. People coming in the door must have noticed Kirsten acting rude. Let's hope it ruined the "magic" so they donated less.

Glad to see freedom of speech win always. This is old news, but I was an SO member attending a May 1996 event (Dianetics anniversary event, I believe) At the Shrine Auditorium. I didn't understand why at the time, but we just followed orders. We formed a "body chain" inside the building blocking all exits exept a few. I heard there was some "enturbulation" outside. About 2 years later, after I had left the SO, I was on alt.religion.scientology communicating with the lone protestor! That was some experience. I forget his name. He told me that he was picketing in a legal location and they couldn't do anything about it. So they had us block the public from exiting where they would be in view of the protester.