Monday, August 31, 2009
And speaking of the station fire...
California has officially stolen our thunder on that one too, naming that massive wildfire north of Los Angeles "The Station Fire." Fuck you so many times, California.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Kerry Anderson makes another shitty decision.
I just found this out, and I don't know how this flew under my radar all week. Apparently Kerry Anderson, the city's building inspector, ordered the Columbus Theatre closed due to fire code violations, which would cost over $100,000 to fix. This is the same Kerry Anderson who issued emergency demolition permits for the old produce terminal on Harris Avenue, and the old police and fire headquarters downtown, both of which are indefinite parking lots now. This trend had already pissed me off for a long time, but the Columbus is especially precarious because the owner can barely break even as it is. This building will sit there empty indefinitely now, because without the income from the operation of the theater, no repairs can be made - not even the ones required to keep the place standing.
I was just recently having a conversation with the husband of one of my relatives, a Warwick police officer, about how fire code reform in the wake of the station fire in 2003 has gotten completely out of control in Rhode Island. More small businesses have closed here as a result of it than for just about any other reason.* The Columbus is just the latest and saddest example of this trend: a fantastic piece of architecture on one of Providence's best streets, run by a long time resident, shut down because of gratuitous building regulation. Add to that a trigger happy building inspector appointed by a mayor with no taste whatsoever, and Broadway's most recognizable landmark looks all but doomed.
This is bad, you guys. It's very financially stressful, even in a good economy, to force private citizens to absorb the cost of upgrading an entire state's infrastructure that was largely built 100 years ago or more. Perhaps the blow has been softened so far, since all of these reforms went into effect during the peak of the state's economy in 2004 and 2005, but the fact remains that maybe this type of thing should be looked at while trying to form an economic plan for the state going forward. Is it really all about taxation?
*I dare all the retards who roar "excessive taxation" at the top of their lungs to come up against a police officer on that.
I was just recently having a conversation with the husband of one of my relatives, a Warwick police officer, about how fire code reform in the wake of the station fire in 2003 has gotten completely out of control in Rhode Island. More small businesses have closed here as a result of it than for just about any other reason.* The Columbus is just the latest and saddest example of this trend: a fantastic piece of architecture on one of Providence's best streets, run by a long time resident, shut down because of gratuitous building regulation. Add to that a trigger happy building inspector appointed by a mayor with no taste whatsoever, and Broadway's most recognizable landmark looks all but doomed.
This is bad, you guys. It's very financially stressful, even in a good economy, to force private citizens to absorb the cost of upgrading an entire state's infrastructure that was largely built 100 years ago or more. Perhaps the blow has been softened so far, since all of these reforms went into effect during the peak of the state's economy in 2004 and 2005, but the fact remains that maybe this type of thing should be looked at while trying to form an economic plan for the state going forward. Is it really all about taxation?
*I dare all the retards who roar "excessive taxation" at the top of their lungs to come up against a police officer on that.
Friday, August 21, 2009
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