Occupy Wall Street defies ban, invests nearly $20,000 in tents

(dropthelime/Instagram)

(dropthelime/Instagram)

The Occupy Wall Street mothership in New York City is digging in for winter:

The Occupy Wall Street protesters are betting nearly $20,000 that they’ll be able to hold fort at Zuccotti Park through the winter.

The demonstrators approved a motion this past weekend to spend $19,200 to buy and erect 20 large tents, in defiance of park rules.

The large, communal tents are designed both for warmth and to protect campers from sexual assault.

Also, it should be noted that the rules which the occupiers are defying are not New York City rules, but rather those of the private company, Brookfield Properties, which owns the park:

“It’s a private park, so if they want to enforce their rules, they would have to talk to us about it,” a police spokesman said, referring to Brookfield.

In an email, a Bloomberg spokesman echoed the NYPD response, saying, “Not our rule. A question for the property owner.”

A spokeswoman for Brookfield declined to comment.

Last month, Brookfield Properties asked the city to clear Zuccotti Park of protesters in order to "clean" the space. However, Brookfield backed down when thousands of people flooded into the park during the hours before the "cleaning" was to take place.

Needless to say, the optics of a private company using force to evict hundreds of protesters are not pretty. The presence of large, communal tents will only up the ante in this standoff.