The ivy trembled before them.

The ratty recliners bade goodbye to their alley homes.

The creatures living under scores of spare tires found themselves homeless.

If it was blight on First Creek or McKinley Hill, 100 volunteers put it in peril Saturday, thanks to two work parties, the Puyallup Tribe and the city of Tacoma.

Joyce Glass reported that the Dome Top Clean Up crew saturated the neighborhood around Gault Middle School and sent four truckloads of junk to the dump. Allyson Griffith of the Tacoma's Community Based Services program provided safety vests, gloves, garbage bags and the coveted dump passes.

DomeToppers distributed 240 door hangers inviting neighbors to join the group. The also made a list of neighbors who need help with maintenance, abatement or getting rid of gang tagging.

Space is cheap on the internet. Let's name the local heroes: Matthew Williams, Joyce Glass, Bill Mattox, Vern Freeman, John Culhane, Jonathan Zold, Mike, Michael and Jennie Agnew, Lynnette and Larry Scheidt, Marcus Mulligan, Chris Skelton, Kali Kucera, and Mary Young and her grandson.

Joyce sent special thanks to the crew from The Crossing Church, who arrived in their distinctive green bus and pitched in: Brenda Bacon, Dennis Stewart, Paul Bergin, Jim Oliver, Scott Murray, Ruth Beard, Ellen and Vincent Prather, Nikki Nicholson and John Sparks.

Down the hill, Dan Fear deployed two teams to attack trash and invasive plants in the First Creek Watershed. People,including kids fresh for the World Vision egg hunt, dropped in to help, so there were likes more than the 53 volunteers who signed in. I'll get that list from Dan, and add those folks to the blog.

One group started just above the Emerald Queen, hauling out junk that generations of the environmentally unaware have tossed over the creek banks. They specialized in rescuing trees engulfed by ivy. The trick is to cut the ivy vines as high as you can reach up the trunk, peel them down to the ground and then roll them away from the tree. All the ivy up the tree starves to death. The stuff on the ground lives, but doesn't produce seeds for a while.

The second team rescued the sidewalk over the creek's culvert on Fairbanks Street. It was twice as wide as anyone thought, and the overgrowth concealed an intriguing array of bottles.

Quote of the site: "There's nothing easy about ivy," David Whited.

Whited works for the Puyallup Tribe, volunteers with the neighbors and organized the celebratory lunch for DomeTopper and First Creek teams at the Portland Avenue Community Center.

Dish of the lunch: Too Busy to Cook's baked beans with hamburger, adapted from a railroad man's recipe. It's worth a few hours of pulling ivy and hauling sofas to get a big helping of it to enjoy with equally muddy friends.

As I wrote in my previous B&I blog post, Lakewood staffers checked the licenses and reiterated against selling knockoff merchandise to some 60 businesses today.

In a letter that was distributed to B&I’s tenants, Lakewood City Manager Andrew Neiditz writes that the city “continues to have challenges with the sales of consumer goods which violate trademarks,” and that “much of this activity currently centers along South Tacoma Way.”

“Lakewood appears to be the center for the distribution and sales (of) ‘knock-offs’ in the South Puget Sound,” Neidtiz writes.

Assistant City Manager Dave Bugher told me that the city also plans to distribute letters to two other businesses with ongoing reports of unlicensed goods: Star Lite Swap Meet and Tacoma Discount World.

The counterfeit merchandise ranges from clothing, shoes, handbags, watches and other types of consumer goods.

In Neiditz’s letter, which isn’t dated, the city issues a stern warning to businesses that sell knockoffs, an approach reminiscent of when it targeted problem motels:

This letter is a warning; it serves to advise property owners and businesses that the distribution and sales of illegal counterfeit goods, where trademarks have been imitated, will no longer be condoned. In the future, should additional federal, state or local investigations uncover illegal sales, the City will take action to revoke business licenses and thereby suspend or close businesses. Those who engage in such practices – including property owners, store managers and employees – may be charged with a crime. Further, property owners and business owners may be subject to civil litigation, in addition to asset forfeiture under state and federal statutes.

If you are aware of these products in your store it is important to voluntarily remove them and discontinue sales of these products.

When the B&I opened today, city workers could be seen handing out letters and checking business licenses.

I’ll write about some of the responses I got from business owners soon.

I can remember when my auntie and uncle took me to the B&I Market Place some 20 years ago.

As a youth, my infatuation that day was focused on the candy and other cool vending machines I could reach. My favorite was one of a chicken that laid plastic eggs.

My uncle tried one of those test-your-love machines. (He scored a “hot” on the love meter, or maybe it was “hemorrhaging.” I can’t remember)

But like generations of other visitors to the historic center on South Tacoma Way, my clearest memory was of Ivan, B&I’s famed gorilla. Looking through a shield of glass, I remember thinking to myself how large he looked up close.

I recall buying some snacks and toys that day, but the highlight was the attraction one notch down on the evolutionary scale.

Now, as a journalist, I’ve been called to the B&I once more, this time for a story. The City of Lakewood swept through the complex today to check business licenses and warn owners against the dangers of hawking unlicensed merchandise, a.k.a. knockoffs.

I was there at 10 a.m., when it opened, to talk to owners and scope out the scene. My, how things have changed under B&I’s big top. Ivan’s gone, he’s new home an Atlanta zoo.

Many of the shops that I most likely walked by two decades ago are gone, their spaces occupied by three, four, maybe five tenants since.

(To the right is a picture TNT photographer Peter Haley shot for the newspaper’s award-winning series on South Tacoma Way in 2007)

There’s an eclectic mix of shops and spots to eat, from clothing to music to hobby shops to a pet store. Lakewood Assistant City Manager Dave Bugher says this center, along with two others in the South Tacoma Way-Pacific Highway Southwest area, is where the city hears of a lot of unlicensed merchandise being sold.

B&I has also had issues with drugs and gangs recently, evidenced by a sign on one store today that read “No gangs,” and that anyone wearing gang colors would be kicked out.

Still, there are honest owners and shoppers at the B&I who realize its significance and want to enjoy it.

Maybe it doesn’t have the same stuff it offered twenty years ago, but few businesses do. And guess what, I found that vending machine with the plastic eggs.

Maybe some things never change.

Stay tuned to find out how business owners took the city’s warning against knockoffs.