Update: Columbia Sportswear reopened for business on Sunday, Dec. 3.

Columbia Sportswear closed its flagship downtown retail location Saturday, at the beginning of the busy holiday shopping season and an apparent reaction to a protest organized outside the store's entrance.

About 50 to 75 people gathered near the store's entrance at 911 S.W. Broadway Ave. to protest what they said was the city's stricter enforcement of its no-sit policy.

Protest leaders said the heightened enforcement was the result of a $15,000 campaign donation that Columbia chief executive Tim Boyle made to Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler. A Facebook post promoting the event noted a recent opinion piece Boyle wrote for The Oregonian/OregonLive in which he said the company was considering closing a downtown Portland office (not the retail site) because of safety concerns.

The new office is located adjacent to the company's retail store at the corner of Southwest Broadway and Taylor, where Saturday's protest took place. A next-door Mountain Hardwear retail store also was closed. Mountain Hardwear is a Columbia Sportswear subsidiary.

The protest may return next week, said Gregory McKelvey, one of the people who spoke to the crowd.

"It shouldn't matter whether you have the money to pay off the mayor or not," McKelvey said through a megaphone.

"This mayor ran housing policies, he ran on getting back our police department," he said. "Instead, he's done the complete opposite. It's not a solution to the housing crisis to just sweep people out of sight and out of mind.

"To say you can't sit here but you can sit somewhere else (is saying) you can sit, but you just can't sit where rich people can see you. That's disgusting."

A Columbia Sportswear spokesperson declined to comment.

Michael Cox, Wheeler's spokesman, sent an email to The Oregonian/OregonLive:

"People expect a Portland Downtown that is accessible, walkable, and livable for our residents, visitors, and workers. We're using the tools we have to help accomplish that goal.

"Part of creating a safe downtown is creating one that is safe for our homeless neighbors, who are disproportionately vulnerable to crime. The best solution providing more warm dry places. That's why we've made record investments in homeless prevention, shelter, mental health and addiction services, and housing."

McKelvey told people at the event that Portland police had chosen to not enforce the no-sit ordinance near the Columbia store on Saturday.

To that, police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson said officers "generally have discretion on how and when to take enforcement action."

Simpson, in an email, added that, "The Bureau prefers to gain voluntary compliance when addressing a violation of Portland City Code or Oregon Revised Statute."

That statute was revised in August. Among other things, it says only pedestrians may use sidewalks in a "high pedestrian traffic area" between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. Those areas, generally, are a wide swath of downtown and the Rose Quarter.

--Allan Brettman

503-294-5900

@allanbrettman