MC is exactly right–regulations like that are inevitably backed by the regulated industry itself. I don’t know how it is in MD, but here in the South state legislators are not usually not slick, well-educated, professional politians. It is actually a part time job here in Alabama, and most legislators are prominiant businessmen in there home towns, good old boys interested primarily in passing laws that help that back home business. They will usually help their neighbor’s businesses as well for “campagin contributions”. They had a big todo in Tennessee a few months back; Three undertakers in the legislature passed a bunch of laws unbenownst to anyone else that greatly benefited thier jobs–The laws made it explicitly clear that the deceased’s wishes could always be superceded by next-of-kin regardless of any will or prior instructions, and that cremations had to be, by law, delayed for 48 hrs or three days or something. These laws together worked to allow undertakers to have the time and the legal leverage to hard sell more expensive funeral arangments to the bereaved than what the guest of honor, so to speak, needed or wanted. I don’t know how it all worked out, but it was dispicable.
State politics are really a lot of fun; they don’t get nearly as much press, but there are scandals, pettinesses, and abuses of power that make national politics look like a kindergarden. Here in Alabama there was a law passed (though vetoed) would have legalized Sunday Liquor sales. After it was passed and the press picked it up, * every single legislator denied haveing ever read it *, including the guy who introduced the bill. He said the lobbyist that gave it to him mislead him about what it said. It says a lot about Alabama that it is more politically expedient to admit to not reading bills you pass than to admit to supporting Sunday alcohol sales.
When we moved to VA a few years ago we were sort of stunned. I was always used to taking the cart to my car (we usually had waaay too many groceries to carry in one trip) and then putting it back in the “corral” area.
Here in VA the grocery stores all have those metal poles and you have to leave your groceries there, hope that no one takes them while you go back and get your car (and in my case buckle the child into a car seat) and drive back. It pretty much means that any major grocery shopping we do we have to both go, so one person can guard the groceries while the other gets the car. It really irritates me. I mean in AZ carts were never that big a problem. Very rarely I’d see one way out in the corner of the lot or down the street, but for the most part they tended to stay in or near the corrals.
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O p a l C a t www.opalcat.com
What about the really important issues! What is your legal liability when operating a shopping cart? Can you be sued for causing an accident? We desperately need some legal scholars to define the law on this-I’m scared every time I have to operate one of these things–I guess I’ll have to write a treatise on this for the Yale Law Review…
Hillary Clinton
OpalCat: Here in VA the grocery stores all have those metal poles and you have to leave your groceries there, hope that no one takes them while you go back and get your car (and in my case buckle the child into a car seat) and drive back. It pretty much means that any major grocery shopping we do we have to both go, so one person can guard the groceries while the other gets the car. It really irritates me. I mean in AZ carts were never that big a problem. Very rarely I’d see one way out in the corner of the lot or down the street, but for the most part they tended to stay in or near the corrals.
I think they did this because lower-income people without cars would walk all the way home with them.
Interestingly, the recently-renovated Giant on South Glebe Rd. in Arlington has removed the barrier poles and established covered corrals for the carts in the parking lot. Probably because the nearby Arna Valley apartments (low-income housing) have all be condemned.
Wrong thinking is punished, right thinking is just as swiftly rewarded. You’ll find it an effective combination.