Posted on 01/10/2004 6:41:17 PM PST by Pikamax
Killjoy mayor turns New York into the forbidden Apple
Paul Harris in New York Sunday January 11, 2004 The Observer
The barmaid leaned over the counter, folded a beer mat into a crude ashtray, then stubbed her cigarette out in it. 'We call that a Mike Bloomberg,' she said with venom, referring to New York's tough-talking mayor. In this city where public smoking is banned, she was breaking the law - just one of many stringent regulations which critics claim are stifling the life of 'the city that never sleeps'.
New York was once the place where anything goes, but under Bloomberg's reign it is fast becoming one of the most controlled cities in America. One city newspaper asked last week: 'Is Fun City turning into Blandsville?'.
Fancy a drink with your picnic in Central Park? Not a chance. Drinking alcohol in public is illegal. Perhaps you can feed the pigeons there? Also banned. Even riding your bike with your feet off the pedals is now against the law. And you'd better have a bell on your handlebars too, or face a fine.
In Britain a mobile phone going off in the cinema is irritating. In New York it is illegal. So is putting your bag on an empty seat in the subway. Ashtrays are illegal except in private homes. And sex is off the menu of entertainment after Bloomberg cracked down on lap-dancing and stripping bars.
All of this has prompted US lifestyle bible Vanity Fair magazine to launch a blistering attack this weekend on Bloomberg and his laws. British journalist Christopher Hitchens was dispatched to break as many laws as possible, including feeding pigeons and taking up two subway seats. He wrote of a 'Niagara of pettiness and random victimisation' and said of Bloomberg: 'Who knows what goes on in the tiny constipated chambers of his mind? All we know for certain is that one of the world's most broadminded and open cities is now in the hands of a picknose control freak.'
Even the police have joined the debate. The city's police union has spent $100,000 launching a 'Don't Blame the Cop' campaign to explain that the wave of on-the-spot fines and court summonses was not their fault. They said they were set performance targets for fines to raise money for New York's empty coffers. 'City Hall is trying to turn us into a revenue-generating agency,' said Patrick Lynch, president of New York City Patrolmen's Benevolent Association.
Many of the laws are not new but are only now being enforced. This has led to a litany of bizarre fines. Jesse Taveras was fined $105 for sitting on a milk crate on the pavement. Yoav Kashida, an Israeli tourist, fell asleep on the subway and woke to find two policeman ticketing him because his head had slid into the seat next to him. Elle and Serge Schroitman were fined for 'blocking a driveway' with their car. Never mind that the driveway was their own. An elderly woman, advised by her doctor to keep her leg elevated to avoid a blood clot, was hit by a $50 fine for resting a foot on the subway chair opposite her. Her appeal, backed by her doctor, was turned down.
Some of the media outrage around the issue is undoubtedly personal. Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, has had three summonses for keeping an ashtray in his office. His office was even raided (and its ashtray confiscated) after a tip-off to City Hall by a Vanity Fair staffer. Carter wrote in his magazine: 'Under current New York City law it is acceptable to keep a loaded handgun in your place of work but not an empty ashtray.'
Bloomberg's main aim has been to force New York's finances back on track. He has largely succeeded but has lost much popularity by raising property taxes while cutting budgets. At Thanksgiving the New York Post ran a front page showing Bloomberg's face morphed on to the body of a turkey.
Yet some New Yorkers are unwilling to go back to the old days. The new laws have helped turn the city into one of the healthiest and most pleasant places to live in America - a far cry from its old image of a dirty, heaving, dangerous metropolis. Its pavements are almost litter-free, its bars clean and its streets among America's safest. Recent crime figures show New York had fewer crimes per 100,000 people than 193 other US cities. Not putting your feet on subway seats might be a small price to pay.
Yet some New Yorkers are unwilling to go back to the old days. The new laws have helped turn the city into one of the healthiest and most pleasant places to live in America - a far cry from its old image of a dirty, heaving, dangerous metropolis. Its pavements are almost litter-free, its bars clean and its streets among America's safest. Recent crime figures show New York had fewer crimes per 100,000 people than 193 other US cities. Not putting your feet on subway seats might be a small price to pay.
That is Ruddy's work not Bloombergs. It is amazing how far they will go to not give a (real)Rebuplican credit for anything. They can sense in their bones the Bloomy is really a liberal. He has ruined this town, it does't feel like NYC any more - it is like Omaha.
I will be surprized if he get reelected. The Average citizen hates him.
Incredible.
Unless they're making the claim that, say, all criminals smoke, and therefore, the smoking ban has driven them away, there is no reason to assume that violent crime rates would go back up if the police stopped being nannies to law-abiding people and refocused their efforts in the proper direction, i.e., pursuing real criminals.
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