This is a nice li'l place ya got 'ere."
Yeah, be a shame if some'n 'appened to it..."
Smoking is the consumer goal, not smoking is the Bloomberg goal.
Get out of ny
New York is simply a glimpse into the future for those of us in fly over country. The populace moans and groans but accepts whatever Commissar Bloomberg dictates.
Someone’s not greasing the Consumer Affairs skids. Just out of curiosity are Street Meat trucks allowed in the city. Do they have to provide surveys for use of the public roadways?
My question is why the city has allowed these restaurants to use public sidewalks as their private property in the first place? The owners are making a profit of the tax payers.
Hmm...surrendering your permit is basically financial suicide, so that's out. Filing for a zoning exemption, well, that's the city government and can take a few weeks or months, but it might be expedited for a little, youknowwhatI'msayin', consideration in the right hands. Or you can opt for a "certified land survey", right? Now, who does that, and who are they related to?
It's a shakedown, of course. And it will work.
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed.
Francisco d'Anconia in Atlas Shrugged
People give up their freedom so easily.
Its easy because its someone else’s freedom they are giving up. They don’t realize that, once you’ve given up everyone else’s freedom, you don’t have any left either.
We hardly ever visit NYC anymore... ever since BloomingIdiot took over, every time we've gone to the City, we've gotten a damn parking or traffic ticket for some supposed violation or other (yes, we carefully read all the street signs before parking). Haven't stayed in a NYC hotel since Giuliani left office either - the insane hotel fees are the #1 reason.
No more tourist dollars from us... oh well.
Those sidewalk tables are denying pushcart vendors city sidewalks to sell their wares in competition with the brick and mortars. < /sarc >
Every outdoor cafe permit is cleared by the Community Board in that area, after an open hearing, and they try to strike a balance between sidewalk use and neighborhood sentiment in favor of the outdoor cafe.
It’s not just a smoking issue, since every outdoor cafe has to have a nonsmoking section, which for the smaller ones ends up being the whole cafe. That’s the law, anyway.
The problem is when restaurant owners stretch the privilege. If they’re on a corner, they can illegally put tables up the side street, or they can add an extra row on the avenue. Recently, a blind guy fell because the restaurant had always had two rows of tables and they added a third one. There is also now a bottleneck where the cafe leaves only a few feet between the outermost row of tables and the mailbox.
This restaurant is having trouble staying in business, as many are.
The real problem is the economy. When the warm weather finally comes, the restaurants can’t wait to get the income from the outdoor cafes. They are hurting. So another anti-business assault is not the answer.
Bloombird is after more revenue but there must be something like a Laffer Curve that says when he’s going too far.
Any person or business from whom the city or state of New York extracts one penny of taxes is a traitor to freedom and to rationality.
So why not just file for exemptions, if they are on public property and put together the documentation to demonstrate if they aren’t?
(Actually, the City should and may have already sorted out and only approached those who are on public property without an exemption.)