I got this tip from a reader. Thanks for the info.
Borough Council: Congratulations on exceeding expectations for attracting new business to town.
See the new smoke shop on Bridge St where the Pinball place was?
Whats that make it now? 7, 8 9?????????? How much can one town smoke?
Thursday, December 4, 2008
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4 comments:
I remember when my wife commented at a borough council meeting (I think it was in the Spring, I remember I was watching it on TV, could have been the May meeting, the minutes for which are still not posted on the boro website) about the abundance of nail & smoke shops in town, Jane Burger's response was something along the lines of "if you don't like it, you go talk to the landlords who rent to them".
Now that's leadership! Power to the people in it's purest form, the government that governs best is the one that governs least, and all that good stuff.
For all you smokers out there, here are all 9 shops conveniently plotted on a map just for you.
Oh, and in all fairness, I remember Jane Burger also adding something along the lines of "council and zoning boards have to follow rules and laws, and you can't just go trampling all over rules and laws and telling people what they can and can't build and where, like the "old" school board tried to do with that lawless new school". That was a zinger about that awful stormwater "waiver" the "old" board was seeking on the new school, because the soil there doesn't allow a certain percentage of collected stormwater infiltrate back into the ground within 96 hours. How well does the soil there infiltrate stormwater runoff from the existing 50+ year old buildings with absolutely no stormwater management techniques in place whatsoever? Don't ask, because knowing something like that would make you an elitist modern thinker. A rabble-rouser, if you will.
A couple thoughts on this:
1. Have you noticed how the "new" school board treats rules and laws lately? And by "lately", I mean since the 1st day they took office?
2. Jane's been on council, what 15 years, many of them as council President? I'm not saying no nail or ciggie shops should be allowed in town, but don't you think that over the last say, 1.5 decades, some more "creative" or "visionary" land use/zoning could have been put in place to allow a few such shops to exist, but not to the point of ridiculous saturation? It's not like council and the zoning board were massively overwhelmed over the last 1.5 decades with amazing amounts of development in town, to the point where they couldn't have worked some of these things out. Someone, please school me in land use law to prove to me that this is absolutely impossible. I mean, how discriminatory and exclusionary would it be to not allow the 17th smoke shop or the 14th nail shop within the 2 square mile borders of Morrisville? Heck, we're headed for a legal showdown over the 2nd known strip club in town.
Re-zoning could be an effective way to deter more tobacco shops and other less desirable businesses. But besides determent, the Council should also be looking for a way to attract more desirable shops through tax breaks and other incentives.
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