 Hello, everyone, Ramadan Mubarak, everybody who's celebrating. I just wanted to say that this is really special for, so right over there we have Sister Hada and Basmala, who we love, we were actually just in Morocco recently, Sister Hada is actually Moroccan and showed us a really great time there, and we're here, you know, we're actually, we left our cooking at home for Ramadan, we have two hours to break our fast, and we left it because we thought it was so important to show up for our Ramadan constantly praises itself for including people of color and being diverse and welcoming and how many other welcome signs can we see around this neighborhood, but then we look at the only Moroccan spot in the whole state, one of the very few people of color own businesses in the whole state, and you're increasing the rent by 150%, that's not all they're welcome to meet, and during the holiest month in the year, when we're fasting, when we can't eat or drink, we're getting closer and closer to the last 10 days, which are so holy to us, that's not all they're welcome, and to do that to a local owned restaurant in one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Vermont is just shameful, so I just want to say, like, we came through doing Ramadan because it's important to us, and if you're one person in Vermont, one person in our community of Vermont, you're all of us, so we're here for that reason, thank you all for being here, and Ramadan Mubarak to anyone who's celebrating, thank you. My name is Julie Musuga, she or they, pronouns are good. I'm just here as a member of this community trying to support my neighbors. I just want to remind folks to please be considerate of whatever wishes the folks at Little Morocco Express, as we protest here to protect their BIPOC owned business. With that, just a little bit of background, we have seen so many people forced out of Burlington by powerful landlords and rent hikes, and if Hinstale properties can raise their rent by 150%, then how long can any of us afford to actually stay here? Little Morocco Cafe has been here for five years now, bringing delicious food and Moroccan culture to this corner of the Old North End. Many of us were fed by them during the pandemic through the Everyone Eats program. Over 16 months, they served our most valuable, honorable friends, thousands of meals. They have offered us all support in trying times, and so we're just here to repay some of that kindness. Last September, their landlord Hinstale properties in this very building told the Little Morocco staff that they did not want to rent to quote the likes of them. A few days ago, property manager Jacob Hinstale, who has admitted the price he was charging was way over market value, decided to raise the rent for Little Morocco by 150% from $2,000 to $5,000. After that, we found in doubt today that the development review, we found out that today the Development Review Board was supposed to meet. I think it got postponed or canceled or something like that. I'm not really sure. Anyway, the Development Review Board was supposed to be considering a new tenant for this location. I want to note that there's no ill will towards this perspective, perspective tenant. Mr. Nellis himself said that recently, he only recently learned about this conflict and is just made about it. He said, it is a broken real estate system where there is an imbalance of power. This situation was unknown to me and it was never my intention to cause any tension or harm. The property manager, Jacob Hinstale, is married to Senator Keisha Ram Hinstale of Chittenden Southeast, the new chair of the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs. She keeps a copy of The Color of Law, a book on housing policy and segregation in her committee room, prominently displayed for everyone to see. Ram Hinstale recently said, I do highly encourage people who want to be part of this conversation to look at the history of how everything from local regulation to federal loan programs have been used to keep American dream the American dream out of people of the hands of people of color in this country, particularly black Americans. Vermont has the fifth largest racial homeownership gap in this country. The statement about home, the statement that she made about homeowners should also apply to the businesses that her husband leases to people, right? In closing, I will just repeat what our friends from Little Morocco have already said. Please know that we are observing the holy month of Ramadan, a month of tolerance, compassion and giving, and as such, we would like to see words turn into action. Please stop by our restaurant and help drive up our food sales because we want to use those proceeds to cover legal expenses when we go to court and most importantly, be able to cover the expansive cost of trying to move Little Morocco Cafe into a different location around town because we would like to be able to serve our community for many years to come. And again, they want to thank you for all of your overwhelming support. Anybody else want to say some stuff? It's okay. If not, we can also do like some hanging out and chanting or whatever. Hi, everyone. My name's Nick. I'm a chef at Single Pebble. I'm very nervous right now. I pulled up with my other friend, other cook. That's Luke over there. My friends here. So, basically what I want to say is I'm not gonna lie and say that I come to this restaurant every day or that I've been supporting it in really any financial capacity until yesterday for the past five years. I've seen them on Instagram though. And if anyone here works in restaurants, you might know it's a very busy life and a lot of the times our schedule just allows us to appreciate things from afar. You know, it just is what it is. For I think since 2020, I've been seeing this restaurant do their thing and I don't know. I've been loving it. I've been loving it. I care a lot about restaurant culture and the community that it creates. And what I'm very upset by is the identity that this rent increase speaks to in Burlington. Burlington politicians, Burlington, the Burlington wealthy, the Burlington landlords. Right across from City Hall is, to be honest, the only restaurant in Burlington I've gotten, uh, pita, hummus. I mean, I was here yesterday. The smoked eggplants were really good. The dips. I apologize if I seem like I don't know what I'm talking about with the food. I'm not trying to say I know all about Moroccan food. I really don't. But what I am saying is the one place I've gotten anything that resembles what I had here yesterday is a restaurant on Church Street directly across from City Hall, which from my perspective in the industry has gotten nothing but support from officials and the greater restaurant community as a whole. I know everyone who works at Honey Road. They're my friends and I love what they create, but it doesn't get created in a vacuum culturally. We're looking at an industry where small family owned independent restaurants cannot operate in this city. The representations of culture, heritage, different backgrounds are beginning to only be represented by the people owned and employed by multimillion dollar boards of investors. We do not see the people who own the restaurant I have gone to get pita from. We will never probably see the people walking these streets, being in the Old North End, serving families. We don't even know if they really live here. Is this the identity we want for Burlington? Do multimillion dollar boards of investors get to decide our identity? Alright, that's all I got. You know. Everyone, my name is Grace. I'm here from Burlington Tenants United. Can you hear me? Hi, my name is Grace. I'm here on behalf of Burlington Tenants United. We're an organization in Burlington that supports tenants of all kinds in Burlington and all of Vermont to fight landlord power and to fight against greed and oppression that landlords perpetrate on us every single day. As tenants, when landlords retaliate, we need to build our own power and capacity to act. Housing power that results mainly in real estate and the Hinsdale family landlord dynasty receiving more money and control over development is not the solution. Building our own class organization with our neighbors for our own defense and control over our homes is what we need. Landlords profit off of gentrification at the expense of our community. We all need places to live, to thrive, to raise our families and to run our businesses, but we do not need landlords. Thank you. Maybe it got postponed because the the potential new tenant like got hoping and wanted to reconsider. So, like, this is working. My name is Julie Massouda and I saw that the rent price was going up by 150% and asked the folks at Little Morocco if having a presence here would be helpful to them and they said yes. And we're really just trying to do whatever we can to support this BIPACO business from getting the price out of Burlington. They shouldn't raise people's rent by 150%. If anything, they should be making this a more and more affordable place for people, especially people that are in marginalized communities to be able to be here and share their culture and so that not just gentrifying local place and pricing people out. These folks have been really solid members of our community, especially during the pandemic when they were participating in the Every One Eats program. They served thousands of meals to people who needed them and we don't want them to go anywhere. Why is it important that a small family and friends, especially in BIPACO, I think because it just brings so much more vitality in communities, it brings us more perspectives, it brings us delicious food. It just makes Burlington a much richer place to live and exist in and I want it to be somewhere that, I know Burlington's always saying that it's so welcoming and I want it to actually be that way. And this is a quieter part of town and it's just, it's really nice to be able to come somewhere like here and just feel like I get to, you know, be transported to Morocco for a second. I don't know, it's just, oh, I'm running out of things to say. What are the concerns about living in a positive environment? Well, as I said earlier, there's not really any ill will toward the perspective tenant, but there are some concerns. I've heard rumors that there are concerns at least about the development review where folks that having a bar somewhere here, possibly next to a place where children are learning, just wouldn't be ideal. And again, it's a quieter part of town. I think people who, a lot of people who live here would like to keep it that way. Can we go anything else out in BIPACO? Yeah, I'm curious. I'm Joy. I'm from Vermont Public. So, obviously this organized about you, do you organize things? Yeah. What comes next for people who care about this issues? I don't, well, this protest kind of came together in the past 48 or so hours after a bunch of us found out about the Redden-Denbury. So, everything happened kind of suddenly and so I don't think I can really speak to that yet. Obviously, I want to take leadership from the folks who are running the restaurants and do whatever whatever they want to make whatever they want to have happen, happen and do so respectfully. And, well, the Development Review Board was supposed to talk about this tonight and then I'm not sure exactly what's happening with that. So, I think it's kind of on Hinsdale now to, you know, respond and hopefully cancel this Redden-Denbury. In the meantime, there's a big ask for people to come and eat here. Yes. So, that's a really great way to show support economically and just your actions and there will probably be updates coming to other ways to support them. Please eat your food. It's very good.