Business
There’s a parking lot in East Oakland. You know the one. It’s nestled between the Amtrak Train tracks to the east and Highway 880 to the west, and bordered by a murky moat-like creek called Damon Slough…and all three of the city’s major sports teams play in either the O.co Coliseum on one side, or the Oracle Arena, on the other. Yeah, that parking lot. It was packed Friday night. People poured into the place once known as the Oakland Alameda County…
About thirty heads turned quickly from left to right, focused on a bright orange ball, as the giant group of players faced off, each with a paddle in one hand and a beer in the other one. Ye Olde Hut was hosting its first “Berlin-style ping-pong party” in Oakland.
It’s 4 a.m. and Franklin Street is buzzing with the sound of forklifts, shouting and trucks in reverse.
Employees at the East Bay chain restaurant Lanesplitter Pizza have taken conflicts with ownership to the public and the Internet, leading to a public debate about their pay, health care and management.
Old Oakland’s downtown business district is getting a facelift. Brick and mortar stores are making a comeback. New establishments are showing up in neighborhoods where there were once empty storefronts. One company has found a way to invest in people and add a little pop to the community.
Allison Briscoe-Smith, the director of the Center for the Vulnerable Child at Children’s Hospital in Oakland, sees consequences in Oakland’s violence that extend far beyond the victims to become a public health issue for the entire community.
He might direct the largest medical marijuana dispensary in the country, but Steve DeAngelo isn’t scared of the government’s attempts to shut it down.
“The federal government has thrown everything they had at us and we met them and we pushed back,” DeAngelo said, referring to Harborside Health Center, where he serves as founder and executive director. “It’s a drug war machine that’s bound for extinction.”
Oakland-based Livescribe, Inc. has taken the ancient art of writing and turned it into a high-tech concept that helps professionals and students maximize their ability to capture information and move it from notepad to computer screen.
More than 500 people from around the Bay Area attended a launch party in downtown Oakland Monday to help HUB Oakland try and raise $100,000 so that it can move into a large, permanent space in the Uptown district of Oakland.