Can You Imagine Being Twice Evicted Due to the Olympics? This Man Can

For many in Japan, the chance to host the 2020 Olympics is an honor and an exciting opportunity to boost business.

But not for Kohei Jinno. He hates the Olympics. And you probably would too if it meant being evicted from your home and business for the second time in your life.

“I don’t want to see the Olympics at all,” Jinno said. “Deep inside, I have a kind of grudge against the Olympics.”

Getty Images.

Jinno, 79, was evicted for the much-heralded 1964 summer Olympics and it looks like he’s going to be evicted again in 2020. As in ’64, Olympic organizers plan to build over Jinno’s home to make room for stadium infrastructure.

The capital reportedly plans to spend roughly $4 billion going all-out for the 2020 event. They plan to build media centers, living quarters for athletes, repair roads, and then there’s the planned 80,000-seat stadium and its $1.3 billion retractable roof.

Still, as impressive as the investment seems, it calls for building over Jinno's flat and his tobacco shop in the Kasumigaoka apartment complex, according to The Japan Times.

A third of the residents at Kasumigaoka are apparently 70 or older – and they’ll have to relocate, the report adds.

True, the government has offered to help the aged residents move and set them up in three other municipal apartment complexes, but Jinno says moving is difficult for people at that age.

“Probably I may go where you cannot set up a tobacco shop. That means I will lose my reason for living,” he said.

And aside from being forced to move for a second time, the aged tobacco shop owner is upset that so much is being spent on the 2020 Olympics when so many are still hurting from the 2011 tsunami and the subsequent Fukushima nuclear meltdown.

“I feel very upset because they will spend a lot of money on the new stadium after decades of pouring taxpayers’ money into the old stadium to maintain something that is only used a few times a year,” he said.

Eighty-six-year-old Kuniyuki Mori, who lives near the Fukushima plant, agrees.

“I want something to be done about our lives now, not something for the Olympics seven years from now,” he told Kahoku Shimpo, a local newspaper.

Tokyo, for its part, insists the investment will bring a welcome boost to the disaster-struck areas.

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(H/T: Deadspin). Featured image Getty Images.

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