Physical fights broke out as landlords celebrating the end of the COVID-eviction moratorium were confronted by protestors at their party in Berkeley, California.
According to several witnesses and participants at the event, several Berkeley tenant groups – including Tenant and Neighborhood Councils (TANC), the Berkeley Tenants Union and others – showed up to a bar where members of Berkeley Property Owners Association (BPOA) were celebrating the end of the moratorium and began protesting.
The confrontation between the groups got physical, with the local tenants shoving a few of the landlords, a landlord allegedly slapping a female protestor, and one of the tenants punching an elderly landlord in the face.
The fight punctuated the end of the COVID-era eviction restriction in the wealthy suburban area, one of the few places in the country that still had a moratorium on landlords kicking renters off their property for not paying rent due to the COVID emergency.
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Instituted in various parts of the U.S. during the coronavirus, these moratoriums provided a safeguard against eviction for renters who couldn’t pay rent due to job loss or health care expenses from the pandemic.
According to local outlet Berkeleyside, several landlords in Berkeley claimed they lost tens of thousands of dollars over the last three years due to the eviction moratorium. They also claimed that some renters who could pay used the moratorium to justify getting out of payments.
The moratorium having recently expired, landlords at the BPOA hosted a celebration at a local bar called the Freehouse Pub Tuesday that was crashed by more than 100 protestors, some of which held signs reading, "NO PEACE FOR EVICTORS."
Berkeleyside reported that protestors stood outside the event, chanting, "See our might, see our power, landlords get no happy hour," and "Get up, get down, f--k the landlords in Freehouse."
They also hurled insults at the partygoers, calling them "parasites" and peppering them with taunts like "Get a job!"
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About an hour into the protest, witnesses told Berkeleyside that protesters entered the bar and picketed there for less than two minutes before fighting broke out.
As the outlet reported, a male attending the BPOA event "slapped a female TANC member in the face and pushed her." Video reportedly showed a protestor knocking the glasses off of a landlord’s head, and another party attendee swinging his fist at that protestor.
BPOA president Krista Gulbransen, who appeared to get shoved while trying to separate a physical confrontation during the showdown, told reporters she didn’t see who began the fighting.
She claimed she tried to get police, who were outside the pub observing the event, to stop the violence, but claimed they did not enter the pub.
Recounting the sequence of events, Gulbrasen said, "(When protesters entered) I went around and told our members to remain quiet, and peaceful and not engage — and they didn’t. The protesters got in the face of some, and I don’t know how it went down from there, but next thing I know people are shoving each other."
According to the report, the picketers left shortly after violence broke out, as BPOA tenants lingered at the bar for a short while after the incident.
The BPOA and TANC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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