Distractions Will Cost You
Around Here
Gary Gerard,
dumbhoosier.com
Just briefly this week, I would like to touch on a local
issue that seems absurd to me.
The City of Warsaw’s hearing officer for the building and
planning department fined The Auto Park $5,000 for flying
balloons and flashing lights.
The car lot on North Detroit Street wasn’t complying with the
city’s sign ordinance, you see.
Now, I am not saying that the city should be without
ordinances regarding signage and such. It can’t be a
free-for-all out there.
But the flip side of that is that a $5,000 fine seems a little
overbaked.
Seriously? $5K?
I know the city warned The Auto Park more than once. I know
the city told them they were in noncompliance. They were told
they couldn’t fly balloons and streamers and flash lights. And
they didn’t show up at a hearing.
The ordinance says they could have fined The Auto Park “not
less than $25 and not more than $2,500.” There were two
violations, so the city went all in with the $5,000 fine.
I guess they even considered a third violation because The
Auto Park parked some vehicles on “green spaces” around the
dealership. But the cars were moved and the city let them
slide on that one, apparently.
All this because these things – balloons, flashing lights,
cars parked on grass – are distracting to drivers.
I wonder about that.
I’ve seen giant Godzillas and King Kongs in front of car lots.
I’ve seen those goofy looking blow-up things that flap their
arms and flail wildly about. I’ve seen all the hazard flashers
on and all the hoods up. I’ve even seen hot girls in bikinis
holding signs.
I’ve seen all manner of methods used by car lots to entice car
buyers. Not in Warsaw, I guess. We’ll have none of that around
here. We have to keep this place free of such abhorrent
“distractions.”
Funny though, even amid all those aforementioned
“distractions,” I was still able to keep my car on the road.
(Even when I saw the hot girls in the bikinis.)
Apparently some drivers, when confronted with such
“distractions,” are adversely affected. They break into a cold
sweat and put a white-knuckle death grip on the steering wheel
at 10 and 2. They strain with every ounce of their being to
avoid averting their glance from the center of the road.
Must ... not ... look! Can ... not ... look!
But it is to no avail. They cannot overcome the temptation.
They look away from the road if only briefly. They immediately
lose control and their cars careen wildly into oncoming
traffic. Destruction ensues.
It is for those drivers the ordinance was written and it is
because of those drivers that The Auto Park must pay.
But apparently there must not be too many of those drivers
because if there was, there would be massive pile-ups in front
of car lots every weekend all across America. Everywhere but
Warsaw, that is. We’ve got it under control here.
And that’s just the car lots. What about the furniture stores?
The pizza joints? The fast food restaurants? What about the
cheerleaders hawking car washes or the Boy Scouts selling
barbecue chicken?
Really, Warsaw? A $5,000 fine for flying balloons and flashing
lights? Is it too late to rescind it to, I don’t know, maybe a
couple hundred bucks and a really snotty letter of reprimand?
It’s stories like this that sometimes make regional and
national news. I hope that’s not the case this time, because
it will make the city of Warsaw look backward and hostile to
local business.
Backward and hostile is no way to go through life.
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