Simone WilsonTimes are tough, and not every burgeoning entrepreneur can find space in his startup budget for schmancy high-rise office space. There are those who would cry about it, and then there's L.A. resident Reginald Banks — who (allegedly) wasn't about to let his customers down just because he had no stupid overpriced hut under which to sell his wares.
Banks' (alleged) makeshift stakeout of choice? The men's public restroom at Jessie Owens Park in South Los Angeles, which sheriff's officials say he turned into an efficiently run, smooth-operatin' crack den for the community.
There's only one nifty office feature he forgot to make his own: the security cameras.
L.A. County sheriff's deputies reportedly spotted the 47-year-old man selling what they called “rock cocaine” and marijuana out of the very public, very kid-frequented bathroom at Owens Park. Or wash closet, if you prefer your drug dispensaries fancy…
According to City News Service:
Deputies had received complaints about a man selling narcotics at the county-operated park at 9651 S. Western Ave. so they set up surveillance of an area where people had witnessed drug sales.
Sergeant Don Rubio says the tape from inside the bathroom showed the suspect “acting as if the restroom was his office and he was conducting business.”
Neat little packages of crack and pot were all lined up and ready for sale — deputies caught the businessman red-handed — and it must have been a good amount, because the suspect's bail is at $50,000.
Owens Park only has one review on Insider Pages, and it's nothing but glowing:
Credit: Insider Pages
“Great workers”? “Clean”? Hmm. Either the girl's a happy customer or Banks is that good at posing as a janitor. Sounds like it may have been “just the park” for a good recession-blurring toke.
With reporting from City News Service.
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