Strip clubs, bakeries, and church schools. What a great mix. From Long Island Newsday.
Here in Morrisville, didn't our plan call for a bakery to accompany the strip club?
Strip club blows top off charter school plan
BY JOHN HILDEBRAND | September 18, 2008
An establishment with a Web site advertising the "absolute best" in topless entertainment, Taste of Honey bar in downtown Hempstead would hardly rate as an ideal neighbor for grade-schoolers.
So state officials were scrambling to explain their policies yesterday, after a Hempstead school board member pointed out that the state had approved an independent charter school to open with a listed address next to a local strip club.
State officials added they hadn't visited the site but would, and would never let a school operate in such a location.
"We're always working to better our practices. That's something we take great pride in," said Cynthia M. Proctor, spokeswoman for a state university institute that handles charter school applications.
For example, she added, the institute might in the future ask applicants for more details regarding planned school locations, such as nearby businesses.
Proctor stressed, however, that the institute is already cautious in approving new charter schools, through a process that lasts for months and includes painstaking checks of applicants' academic and financial records.
Tuesday, state university trustees approved the creation of seven new charter schools - out of 19 applications. Among those approved was Academy Charter School in Hempstead, which is to open next fall with 168 students in grades K-2.
Typically, charter schools are not inspected until a month or two before they open, to give operators time to obtain required building permits.
The school lists its future address as 253A Fulton Ave., next to Taste of Honey. Hempstead school district authorities, who worry that the charter school will draw away students and property tax revenues, quickly criticized the location.
"I definitely wouldn't want to see anyone's children next to the Taste of Honey," said board president Charles Renfroe.
Not to worry, say charter school sponsors, who include leaders of Calvary Tabernacle, a local evangelical church. They note other sites are available, including a three-story building at 80 N. Franklin St., which houses the church's Sunday-school classrooms.
"We have plenty of space that's not next to a topless bar," said Robert Stewart, the church's chief operating officer.
Sponsors say they originally listed the Fulton Avenue site after an architect said the building, which the church owns and once served as its youth center, could be easily converted to an elementary school. Sponsors now concede the site is unacceptable from a political standpoint, and an attorney for the bar owner said the site was also inappropriate because of heavy vehicle traffic.
Still, sponsors regard all the furor as a bit silly, considering that Taste of Honey is in an area where bars are common. It doesn't open until 5 p.m. and its stucco exterior reveals nothing about its activities.
Said Stewart, "Many of the kids thought it was a bakery."
Friday, September 19, 2008
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6 comments:
It makes good sense to not place a strip club and a charter school adjacent to each other.
What I find disturbing is the over-all progression that occurs in a situation like this. I cannot find words to adequately explain it, and I am certain there must be some study somewhere that does.
A strip club keeps a school away. If the school had been there first, it may have kept the strip club away. The two are not compatible.
But in a community of common ethical values, it seems easier to have a dark stain grow than it is to shed light in a shadowed corner. By this I mean that establishments such as strip clubs, something we would NEVER want our children to be exposed to, can gain a toehold more easily in a town like ours than entites such as charter schools can be established in areas of great need.
To use another analogy, a dirt smudge on a piece of white paper more easily ruins that pristine page than does a white scuff on a piece of black paper.
Well said!
But what's a town to do if it kneads the dough!
Be careful or you might get a yeast infection!!
OH Yes, I went there!!!
Wow, that was crusty and stale.
A moldy oldie? perhaps? Remember, bread mold makes penicillin, and penicillin cures infections.
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