Listen, assholes. The block party permit that you filed with the city says that the non-removable barriers would be placed AFTER my house.
Just because you decided to close off the other half of the street (and use a truck in addition to the cones, which is explicitly banned by the permit language) doesn’t mean you actually have the legal right to.
Fuckers.
PS If you inconsiderate assholes are wondering who called the cops, it was me.
Fuck you, you lying fuckers.
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest the neighbors know exactly who called the cops.
Columbo…is that you?
I’m guessing that you are not going to the block party…
My actual neighbors might. They would also be unaffected.
In the context of this post, I used the word loosely. Turns out this city lets you get a block party permit to close the next street over instead of your own. I’ve never even seen the people whose names are on the permit, and, thus, are on the hook for this shit.
Of course that’s why they pulled this–if they filed the permit honestly, it would’ve required the signatures of the rest of the houses on the street. Far easier to just get the signatures from the ones you know, and then close the street wherever you want anyway.
I actually have errands to do, which is why I found the inability to leave my house, illegal as it is, irritating as hell.
What sort of barriers did they install that are non-removable?
Yikes, I just realized that you will *never *be able to leave your house!
Can we bring you anything?
mmm
Wha wha wha whattt??!!!
A car–which is defined as such by the city since it requires as a specific individual to move it.
They’re specifically banned by the city for that purpose.
If you have an issue with the terminology, take it up with them, as that’s the specific language used to refer to vehicles in the permit application.
See above.
The city refers to vehicles as non-removable barricades & bans them explicitly for these purposes.
Take your issue up with them.
I was surprised by that too, but since the permit said I’d have free and clear access to my driveway and all the affected houses signed off, I didn’t really care.
When they illegally closed the street in a manner that took away my street access, that’s when I got pissed.
To make my point extra clear:
The city says, if you want to have a block party, fine. We’ll let you close off the street with removable barricades (such as cones; no non-removable barricades, including vehicles) if you get the signatures of the people in the affected houses saying they’re fine not having access to their driveway.
My neighbors said fine, and filed a permit to close 2402-2516, accompanied by the signatures of the residents of 2402-2516.
Since the flyer said that the block party would be from Cross Street X to Cross Street Y, and I live between those two streets and never met those people (and, thus, never signed the required paperwork), and know that the people across the street wouldn’t sign that paperwork under any circumstances, I suspected that something was up & I got my hands on the granted permit application.
When I saw that it was to close 2402-2516, instead of Cross Street X to Cross Street Y, I went on my way and pretty much forgot about it, since I live between the cross streets on the flyer but not the affected houses on the permit.
Then when it came time for the block party today, instead of closing 2402-2516, they closed from Cross Street X to Cross Street Y, meaning 2300-2516, with a vehicle blocking 3/4 of the road & cones blocking the rest.
As I live between 2300 and 2402, that royally pissed me off, since I can’t legally pull out my driveway to do my errands.
I wouldn’t give a fuck if they closed the street where they said they would, and I would’ve moved my schedule around and signed the paper if they did what the city requires and introduced themselves and asked for my approval (again, I can’t say the same of the people across the street, though, so it’s somewhat irrelevant).
But instead, they got the permit, within regulations, then illegally closed the street wherever they damn well wanted. And, yeah, I called the cops because it’s illegal to park a vehicle across more than a lane of traffic and leave cones in the road without approval.
But since the dispatcher told me that all they know is that they’re authorized to close part of the street, rather than exactly where, I doubt anything will come of my call.
Back in the summer of 2011 on an early Saturday afternoon there was a car that parked on a quiet residential street in front of our house and soon several more parked nearby. Folks were getting out and conferring and chatting. I remember a young adult woman step unabashedly several yards into our yard so she could touch a tree. More and more vehicles came and were parking in front of the adjacent residences, across the street. I was wondering what was going on. All I could think was maybe a religious group planning to canvass or something. There were numerous children in their ranks. So after awhile they all, around 3 dozen of them, walked into the left edge of our yard very close to our driveway, past our garage, then into our backyard, then the border meeting the back yards of two residences on the 2 nearest streets perpendicular to ours. They proceeded into the yard and up to the patio of the next home down on the left hand side. Oh, how delightful, they came to surprise the couple who lived there. This was probably a preplanned family get together and by this point the couple must have wondered where everyone was. Well, after they had a few minutes of that wonderful memorably bonding experience, the drivers of the vehicles came back through the yards so they could park a little closer to home. This happened at my parents’ house. They were on a brief errand when this happened and when they got back the last of the few stragglers were heading out. I could tell my parents were a little confused but probably didn’t see enough to give it much thought afterward as they only saw the tip of the iceberg. God damn, I would have loved to crank up the garden hose when those fuckers came back for their cars. I should’ve sent some nasty mail to that address in the days that followed and asked who I could give a piece of my mind, whose yard out there is open for anyone to go to town on.
I just called, but there’s a recording saying that due to the ongoing investigation involving a block party with a misplaced egress, all police and city government resources are unavailable until further notice.
That’s ridiculous.
Entitled people are real assholes.
Turns out that they were smart enough to invite the K-9 unit for the kids to meet, so, even if they did have access to the permit, I wonder if anything would’ve come of it.
Given that the law, rather than a permit regulation, forbids closing a lane and a half of traffic with a vehicle, and they didn’t see a problem with that, I doubt it.
I’m not one to speak ill of cops in general, but c’mon. At least move the barricades to the legal spot with the legal materials before yukking it up with these assholes. I get the feeling that, if I tried to pull out now that they’re enjoying the party, I’d get quickly ticketed for driving on a closed street.
I ended up calling a friend and meeting him and the barricade and we went out in his car, so I wouldn’t be driving down the closed street that shouldn’t have been closed in the first place.
Ultimately, it feels to me like they skirted the signature requirement by getting their friends on the block to agree to close the street in front of their houses, which they have the right to do, then putting the barricades wherever they want.
If they had done it legally, I would have (like I said) been behind them 100%.
The way they did it, though, feels sneaky and underhanded. The signature requirements exist for a reason, and I support them. The law against closing a lane (or more) with an unmanned vehicle also makes logical sense to me.
I feel (and I accept that I’m in the minority on this) that if these rules and laws matter enough to the city to pass them, they should matter enough to enforce them. I don’t feel (and, again, I know I’m in the minority) like it’s asking too much to require applicants adhere to the terms they agreed to when they were granted an application, nor do I feel like it would’ve been too much to ask of the police department to ask them to do so. Either file the documentation with the required signatures properly or stick to the documentation that you filed.
But, again, ultimately it doesn’t really matter since I got my errands done and nobody in the spontaneously affected area actually needed an ambulance or fire truck immediately.
I’m not happy with how they handled the barricades, nor am I too happy with the police department who’re too busy enjoying the party to enforce the law, but, ultimately, whatever. There’s a reason that the number one block party tip is invite & feed (at no cost to them) the police; it’s the same reason that the cops are the ones sitting the middle of the street setting off illegal fireworks on the 4th of July (which I wouldn’t be surprised to see again today).
On another board I belong to, they call these trainwrecks “Friday threads”. So happy second Friday everyone!
Nope, I’m good. It’s you with the issue(s).
mmm
Why don’t you go join the party? And then explain/complain to the party throwers.
Torch the obstructing car. It’s the only way to get even.
What if you backed out of your driveway and hit the car , who would be at fault? You for not looking or the illegally parked car?