Just a few weeks after Portsmouth activists installed a Bitcoin Vending Machine, a fifth NH-based BVM has launched, this one in Concord! Area 23, a bar at 254 N State St (Unit H in the Smokestack Center) is the location of NH’s newest BVM. Area 23 is a newer establishment, having opened its doors in 2015 and it’s been accepting bitcoin from customers as payment from day one.
Longtime Concord liberty activist Kirk McNeil is Area 23’s proprietor. Longtime readers of Free Keene may remember him for making headlines for legalizing nanobreweries in New Hampshire. Kirk said in an interview for Free Keene, “I’m happy to have a location where people can access and utilize alternative currencies and exchange methods.”
Entrepreneur and newer mover David Jurist purchased the Lamassu brand BVM, approached Kirk before anyone else and offered him the opportunity to host the unit at Area 23, given it was already a liberty-and-bitcoin friendly establishment. David told me, “it’s exciting that the capital city of New Hampshire finally has a Bitcoin Vending Machine”. I agree. It’s also timely as one of the state representatives on the “Commission to Study Cryptocurrency” has followed through on her promise to file a bill this year that will ensure bitcoin users do not need to register as “money transmitters”. (more…)
Wow, what a decade! For a full ten years we’ve covered liberty-oriented news, opinion, and activism here at New Hampshire’s Liberty Activism Destination – Free Keene. We’re celebrating nearly 5,000 posts and over 62,000 comments since December 27th of 2006.
Without a doubt, Free Keene is the site of record for much of the most noteworthy activism over the last ten years from across the Shire. Other libertarian blogs from across the state have tried to compete, and failed, sadly. I really take no pleasure in this. My initial vision for this site did not include statewide coverage. I’d hoped other blogs would crop up and report on their area’s activism, but we ended up expanding to do that after the ball was dropped everywhere else. (See Free Manch, Free Grafton, etc.)
Some bloggers, like the movers here, have come and gone. The haters have also come and gone over the last decade. Despite our bloggers being targeted for arrests, lawsuits, and physical attacks, Free Keene has not been stopped. To the contrary, while the haters scream out from their comments and blogs about how irrelevant we are, they refute their own assertion by their very attention to us.
The critics might say, “Well, it’s been a decade – why aren’t you free yet?” (more…)
More than three years after the City of Keene filed suit against Keene’s “Robin Hooders” (the activists who’ve saved motorists from thousands of parking tickets by feeding expired meters), the case has finally come to a close – at least within the New Hampshire court system. In a short four-page order issued just before Christmas, the NH supreme court affirms the Cheshire superior court’s decision to deny the city’s request for an unconstitutional injunction they’ve been begging for since 2013:
taking into consideration the governmental interest that would be served, the trial court weighed the benefits of the requested relief against the effect that relief would have on the respondents’ constitutionally protected speech, and, based upon the factual record before it, exercised its equitable discretion to deny the proposed injunction.
We won! (Again!) Presuming the city gang does not decide to continue lavishing taxpayer dollars on their expensive private attorneys to take the case to federal court, it should end here. We’ve yet to see the total cost of the several court appearances the city has made, but then-city-manager John MacLean admitted in 2013 that the first round (of four) cost about $20,000. Their private attorneys billed them so much, that on this final round at the supreme court they were claiming to have taken the case “pro bono”. Another way to say that is that the city paid tens-of-thousands for the first three rounds in court and got the fourth free.
James Cleaveland, Attorney Jon Meyer, Ian Freeman
All the while free speech attorney Jon Meyer of Manchester truly did take the Robin Hooders’ case pro-bono, the entire time. His talent is legendary and he not only brilliantly defended the peaceful activists but proved without a doubt that the city’s parking enforcers were dishonest and ridiculous. There was never any evidence presented that the accused Robin Hooders had “threatened, intimidated, or harassed” the city employees. As if to prove how ridiculous their claims were, parking enforcer Jane desperately stated that anything Garret said, even talking to her about the weather, she considered to be “taunting”. It was laughable but also very serious – the city gang was lying to try to get the judge to order us to stay 50 feet away from the enforcers. (more…)
Tuesday morning the saga of UBER Grandma came to a close at Portsmouth district court. Stephanie Franz’ trial was scheduled for seven tickets she’s received since October of 2015 for the horrible crime of driving people places without a government permission slip. Rather than thank her for providing the service of getting drunk people home alive (and stopping them from driving themselves home drunk), the “City of Portsmouth” gang decided to ticket her seven times for a total of $6,500! $500 for the first ticket, $1000 each for the rest.
The city’s argument for threatening the sweet grandmother and other UBER drivers with such ridiculous fines was the claim that more stringent background checks than what UBER provides are necessary to keep passengers safe. However, this argument is obvious garbage, as the city only regulates drivers who charge for their services. If a convicted murderer were to offer rides for free, the regulations wouldn’t apply. Portsmouth’s anti-ride-sharing regulations, passed in Summer of 2015, were created to protect the existing taxi oligopoly. That’s what regulations are really for – not to protect consumers as the government claims, but to protect the established businesses from innovative competition.
Despite the constant attacks by both the police and the cabbies, UBER Grandma was not deterred. She kept driving in civil disobedience to the city’s protectionist ordinances, knowing she had harmed no one, and in fact had helped many people get home safely. She’s a hero for continuing to stand up for her right to do business without asking for permission! (more…)
Major news from the bitcoin-in-real-life hotspot of the world, Keene, New Hampshire! Now, you can get your car repaired with bitcoin at the award-winning, ASE-certified Wilder Automotive at 384 Washington Stree in Keene. Winner of the Keene Sentinel “Reader’s Choice Award” for Best Local Mechanic of 2015, owner Steven Wilder learned he had multiple customers who were asking about bitcoin. As he looked into it further, he discovered that accepting bitcoin may also get him new business through the door, as the owner of Keene-based Linux computer internet retailer Think Penguin, has said he needs some car repair done and would prefer to give his business to a bitcoin-accepting mechanic.
As stated in the radio ads that Shire BTC has been running on the Peak 101.9, Bitcoin is an international currency, but feels hyper-local. We’ve seen multiple examples of local bitcoin-accepting businesses patronizing each other. Not only do business owners get to keep more from each sale than they do from credit card transactions, but that also means more money staying here in the Keene-area economy, rather than going to megacorporate credit card companies!
Pizza doesn’t get fresher than Little Zoe’s, now available for bitcoin!
Wilder Automotive accepting bitcoin is a major level up for Keene, which until now had several smaller-ticket brick-and-mortar businesses onboard the Keene Bitcoin Network, like Main Street hair salon Moda Suo, gift shop Route 101 Local Goods, and Vietnamese food truck Bon Vivant. The announcment may attract excited bitcoiners from around the region to get their cars and trucks repaired with BTC.
Another established, award-winning Keene business that is now accepting bitcoin at their point-of-sale is Little Zoe’s Take and Bake Pizza, located in the Center at Keene on Gilbo Ave. Originally established several years ago, the unique pizzeria makes each pizza fresh and then you take the pizza home and cook it in your oven! Their delicious pizza is available with a staggering amount of topping configurations and won NH Magazine’s “Best of NH” award for 2013. (more…)
Watch as the city’s private attorneys try their best to get the court to approve of their request for an unconstitutional injunction that would infringe on the free speech rights of the “Robin Hooders“, the activists who’ve made international headlines after the city filed suit against us for filling expired parking meters and calling out the parking enforcers for the evil they commit on a daily basis.
The court’s justices, who normally give each side a good grilling in these hearings, seem to only give the city’s attorney a hard time. Free speech attorney Jon Meyer, who has taken the case pro-bono says he’s “cautiously optimistic”. One should not get too sure of one’s position with the court, so we’ll know likely within six months how they have decided on what should be the final appearance in a New Hampshire court.
If they lose, will the City of Keene spend tens-of-thousands more taxpayer dollars to appeal to the federal courts to stop an activity that has basically tapered off on its own? (The city’s own updated suit has dropped four of the six original respondents as they don’t even live in town anymore.) The city gang is notoriously bad at learning their lesson, so it wouldn’t surprise me.
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