The absurdity of locals preventing a new viable buisness yet allowing others to
impala
The People's Republic of Pennsylvania
O.K., first some background to the story. Was talking to a freind of mine a couple of weekends ago who use to own a bar and was thinking about opening a new bar with strippers. The old bar he had was a nice regular corner bar that would occasionally have go go dancers (usually Tuesday thru Thursday evenings) to help bring in customers on his slow evenings. Girls only danced on stage, and there were no lap or private dances allowed because he didn't want problems. Place was in town, but never really had any problems while he owned it. About a decade ago he was having some health issues and he sold the place, and the new owners (from outside the area) tried to run it more like a regular strip club and it got a bad reputation early quick, and got to be known for drugs and prostitution. After about a year they got busted, and place has been through several owners but is still a major problem, and although they no longer have dancers, is still a major drug and gang haven, and I know that the neighbors complain about it all the time. Fast forward a few years and my freind has his health issues taken care of and was thinking about opening a new place. He wants to have a nice local strip bar, inexpensive drinks, cute girls, and run a clean place. To avoid problems in town, he has a place he bought outside of town so that there won't be a neighbor issue. Here is the catch, he cannot get the local authorities to grant him the proper lisencing. He has gone through all the hoops, applied for the appropriate permits and variances, supplied his history on how he used to run the old bar. The problem is that he hasn't been denied anything, they just won't vote on it to allow him to open (every time there is a township meeting he is there and they postpone the vote till the next meeting). This is been going on now for about 2 years, but they have allowed 2 other regular bars (because they offer a "higher class" experiance), a tattoo parlor (which the owner has been in and out of jail several times for drug sales ofences) and a "therapeutic" massage parlor (which is getting quite a reputation in of itself). Rumor is is that he has been told that he needs to make a few "contributions" to certain board members. I have also heard that a major automobile dealer (who has major pull in the area, and also "unofficially" partially owns a strip club close) wants the location for a new dealership (by the way, he owns about a dozen other dealerships the area, how many car dealerships do we need anyways) where he wants to open up. He will neither confirm or deny such. Officially he says that their reasoning is is that they need to hold a public forum on the issue, but they won't vote on a date for such either.
I just find I absurd how local politics allows problems and car dealers to run rampant, but an established buisness man with a good history is denied opening an establishment that would provide jobs and pay taxes.
I just find I absurd how local politics allows problems and car dealers to run rampant, but an established buisness man with a good history is denied opening an establishment that would provide jobs and pay taxes.
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I have a friend that owns a regular bar and he just wanted to redecorate and improve his building but the city is dead set against him so they refused for months to give him a final occupancy permit even after the work was completed according to code and their issued permit. He has steadfastly ignored the innuendo that these problems would go away with some financial consideration to certain people.
He would rather spend his money on an out of town lawyer who brought in a state code enforcement official to force the city to back off or face the state code office stepping in and investigating ALL their activities. He still faces LE hassling him every week end even though he is just a regular bar that local country bands play on the weekends.
The place down the street used to have drug and gang problems all the time and the city did nothing. The straight arrow county sheriff stepped in along with the state police to investigate, patrol and eventually shut the place down. (they would not even tell the city they were coming nor would they allow them near the place) Rumors were the city was paid to look the other way but the sheriff could not get enough to indite various city officials and LE.
Years ago I used to live in a town where if you were an out of town construction company you had to pay "extra" to get your building permits approved and get your people licensed to be able to work in the city even if they already had the appropriate state licenses. You had to figure the cost into your bid for major work and it usually meant your bid was over the local contractor. (also the local contractors usually got a pass for substandard work)
Local politics, what a wonderful thing. If they want to raise your property taxes or local income taxes to pay for one of their pet projects (they are currently replacing all of the downtown sidewalks in town with brick, at a cost of $800,000 to tax payers, and only took them about 3 months with studies and a public meeting on it (which the locals said they didn't want and wansmt needed, but they went ahead with it anyways) to approve), but a viable buisness owner keeps getting the run around. I live here and there is a lot more to this board than I want to go into that time and space in here allows, and I do have some "enemies" on the board so I don't want to go into the specifics too much because is one of them reads this I don't need the retaliation. I will tell you most of them are not originally from the area, and are slowing trying to turn my quiet little town I live in into something more like a resort town from the Poconos or the Catskills. I just don't understand why they allow some what they do allow unless there is some type of corruption going on. Due to certain new local ordinances they have prevented some businesses from comming to the area because they don't "fit in to the futur plans for the revitalization and transformation of #######", but allow others that make no sence. I know they stopped a local resteraunt from getting a liquor lisence, but then a couple of months later HELPED a major chain get one. They prevented a mom and pop gas station from putting in new fuel tanks and they had to close, then allowed Shetz (If you don't know, Shetz is a major gas station convenience store chain here in the north east) to build a brand new gas station on the same exact site about a year later. I personally think that they have something else planned for the location, wether it is already earmarked by someone or are trying to attract someone, that area is a really good location for future expansion for commercial development.
Lap dancing only got going in San Francisco because Jim and Artie Mitchell never capitulated and were willing to be arrested and booked over 100 times, and because they were willing to go thru a jury trial, and because they hired expert lawyers and courted the newspaper journalists. They also got some help from Rose Bird, Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, throwing out some Victorian Era Red Light Abatement laws, laws which allowed closure of businesses without due process.
The person who opened the Sunnyvale Kit Kat Club ( now Cheetahs and nude no alcohol ) had to sue Sunnyvale to get his business license. And then as they tried to bring in San Francisco style lap dancing, there was a long investigation and then a prosecution on prostitution and pandering charges. Really ugly.
And then in many places they will claim that you need an Adult Entertainment permit. This does not actually authorize you to do anything you couldn't otherwise do. But it does make you subject to all sorts of new rules and restrictions. Most of these don't apply anywhere except in an Adult Entertainment licensed facility. So you could do things out on the sidewalk out in front, that you could not do inside the Adult Entertainment licensed facility.
Most of these rules are entirely unconstitutional. But that is little consolation to the one who is having to pay the legal costs. Breaking the business operator down is part of the plan.
There was this place in San Jose, Sugars. It was an attempt to broaden the Vietnamese Coffee Shop concept. And so the city came after them, because of residential neighbors, saying that they needed this Adult Entertainment permit. And so it was downhill from there. They were smart enough not to apply for the permit. But eventually the city found a way to win. They were also bankrupting the owner.
SJG
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