The dinosaurs and other metal sculptures appeared behind fencing on a city sidewalk on Ninth Avenue in mid-November. They are a bizarre escalation of the ongoing conflict in the Zone, where local business owners have fought to get the city to clear the more than 900 people living on the streets.
Shortly after the dinosaurs appeared, the city said that they were installed without authorization during ongoing utility work in the area — apparently surprising city officials. But the city refused to name the business owner responsible for putting them up.
Records obtained by Phoenix New Times showed that the city believed that Maker Kitchens, a California-based ghost kitchen company, was responsible for the dinosaurs. The company owns a warehouse on the block.
In late November, the city asked Maker Kitchens to remove the structures and gave it 30 days to do so. "If the obstructions are not removed by December 30, 2022, the city will take further action," Kini Knudson, director of the city's Street Transportation Department, wrote in a letter to Yossi Reinstein, a partner at Maker Kitchens.
A week after the city's deadline, the dinosaurs remain.
Reinstein and Maker Kitchens have not replied to any of New Times' inquiries about the dinosaurs over the last month, and they did not reply to another inquiry on Thursday about the dinosaurs.
The city wouldn't say whether the company would face sanctions for missing the removal deadline. "The city is aware that the obstructions have not been removed and is working to identify the next steps for clearing the public right-of-way," Gregg Bach, a spokesperson for the city's Street Transportation Department, wrote in an email to New Times on Wednesday.
But there are fewer dinosaurs in place now than a few weeks ago. Bill Morlan, president of Electric Supply, which is located just north of Maker Kitchens, admitted to New Times in December that he funded some of the dinosaurs. He initially denied any responsibility for the dinosaurs. Morlan has since removed sculptures directly adjacent to his property, including a large brontosaurus and several metal prickly pears.
Social services workers helped unsheltered people move their belongings to a nearby parking lot during a city-run sweep in the Zone on December 16.
Katya Schwenk
Sweeps Continue in the Zone
Maker Kitchens is part of an ongoing lawsuit brought by business owners in the area to try to force the city to clear the encampment. The business owners are waiting on a judge to decide whether or not to intervene. But the lawsuit has succeeded in prompting the city to restart sweeps in the Zone after pausing them for months. These sweeps — which the city calls "enhanced cleanups" and which many activists call "raids" — force people living in tents to move all their belongings while the streets are sanitized and trash is removed.
In the past, the city has often trashed the belongings of unsheltered people during the sweeps, which is a practice that helped spur both a U.S. Department of Justice investigation and a recent lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona.
Still, the city has moved forward with its cleanups. After what the city called a "pilot" run on December 16, it conducted another sweep on Wednesday morning. Both sweeps focused on a single block, a change from the practice in prior years that would clean the entire encampment.
The city said it is offering housing to people living in the Zone during the sweeps, but many activists are skeptical that the effort is contributing to a permanent solution. When a reporter visited the area two weeks after the first sweep, the block that was emptied during the cleanup was full again with tents and other structures.
The city declined to provide a schedule for future sweeps. "We anticipate that in the future they will be more frequently than monthly as we are able to get our processes in place," said Ashley Patton, the city's deputy communications director.
