A couple of weeks ago a group calling themselves the Anti-Gentrification Front stole Save On Meats’ sidewalk sign, posed with it by throwing up peace signs (absurdly, as above) and sent the picture to Mark Brand as if they were putting him on notice. It was a silly bit of business, really, and it would be oh so easy to leave it at that and pay the insurance man. Alas, I don’t think that’s what Brand has in mind.

“The team was bummed. We say bummed because it was an inanimate sheet of plywood,” he writes tonight via email. “Nobody was hurt (feelings aside) but threats were hurled. Serious threats against the venue, and therefore against employees, people who work day in and out for their community.” In the morning, it appears as if he and “the team” will be responding, not with threats of their own, but with a laugh at the Anti-Gentrification Front’s posturing and a new campaign to help feed the women of the Rainier Hotel.