Pembroke City Coucil

[KrustyKidd]

My town recently sent a business owner into backruptcy by charging all peelers $150 a year for a license. Normally in most Ontario places this is $50. Scince the girls make $700 for the week they are here and pay food, gas, agent's fees, union and hotels this takes quite the chunk out of the income. Hence they just avoid Pembroke and the guy closed.

The newspaper had an editorial about it and called it for what it was, a morality decision by a council set up and fully qualified to make zoneing laws not function as a Ruling Taliban Committee. A gentleman, who was most likely very active in petitioning the city for this decision wrote back and chatitised the paper for their stand and then went on to tell us all about the evils of pornography and all. I wrote a letter to the newspaper expressing my concerns and submitted it. Views?

Re: Business at any price.

Mr Grant, your letter of November 29 stated some valid concerns ranging from exotic dancers to pornography, and then some judgmental tripe of how 14 lost jobs were less important than (I assume) anybody else’s, your’s included.  Your smug approval of sending a man who has invested his life savings and given this city at least half a million dollars in taxes, packing into bankruptcy with a septic handshake makes me sick..  If morality equals pure vindictiveness, then city council and their supporters in this issue are wallowing in it.

A question.  At the “standing room only” city council meeting you referred to, was there a general vote taken amongst all present?  I  know there wasn’t,  so for you to represent this gathering as a ‘we shall overcome’ consensus of the town’s will, is wrong and misleading.  Shame on you for portraying a weak position as strong by resorting to this cheap illusion.

City Council was elected to decide on by-laws of zoning, taxation and keeping the city infrastructure running.  They are not a tool of any political, moral movement or affiliation. They were not elected as our town Taliban to decide which books to prohibit from the library or what is proper attire for our young people, yet you would use them to decide what over fifty percent of this town can, and cannot do based on individual morality?  That is true obscenity! 

Through a simple licensing act, they decided what we can, and cannot view in this town.  Walter, wake up!  This includes you!  Like the rest of us, you are being told what is morally right and wrong by people elected to tell you which day is garbage pick up day for crying out loud!  Where will it stop Mr Grant?  When you, yourself are happy, or will this ‘morality snowball’ collect steam, and keep rolling to include other freedoms you take for granted?  I am sure you know this poem by Pastor Niemöller::

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up for me.”

Well Walter, they are coming for the independent business person, the people that employ more than half of Canadians, built this Country and town, and you helped turn them in.  Will you be happy when the church choir is not permitted to go above a certain decibel level because it rattles some Atheist’s nerves?  How about the UNO controlling the internet?  (That one is in the works by the way and the stuff rolls downhill), how about freedom to assemble for a family BBQ when there is a law that prohibits groups of five or more?  The movies shown at our privately owned theaters? How about freedom to move after 11 PM?  Will you have a censor in the Observer office as well to ensure that it prints ‘All the news that’s FIT to print?”

“Pornography is a scourge on our society.”  Is it Walter?  If it is that much of a problem then let’s table it as a real item and have a town referendum instead of hiding it amongst dog licensing fees and leaf burning by-laws.  Let’s all air our concerns legitimately instead of city hall slipping it in with the garbage pick up flyers when we’re not looking.  I would also add that at this moment we have soldiers securing Afghanistan so that a form of government that is oppressive does not return to make decisions for it’s citizens.  Ironic isn’t it?  They are there defending what you and city council are trying to take away. WWI.  II,  Korea, our dead litter the ground of continents while defending freedom.  With a stroke of a pen city council takes it away.  And you applaud it,      I shake my head. .  To make matters worse, you compound city council’s and your socialist idiocy by chastising the Observer for reporting it for what it is - Dictatorship and lack of due process in law making.  In short, Censorship.  Shame on you and shame on them for thinking you have any sort of real consensus. 

Will the morality police move on to other venues such as bikinis on the beach?  How about you taking your shirt off on a hot summer day?    You tell me Walter, you have the inside track on what is, and is not morally acceptable in this town.  Are you going to smash windows that display mannequins wearing provocative clothing, and burn stores that exhibit “Young Ms” magazine with a titillating woman on the cover if you can’t find a by-law to subvert it?  Are you going to send these store owners packing like they did Mr Lee, into the soup line forfeiting their life savings?  Or just drag them behind a pickup truck because you don’t like “their kind?”  I think not Walter, we are onto your little game here.  You and your ilk won’t stop with the Windsor Tavern, it’s an ongoing process called “Erosion of Personal Freedoms and Rights.”  You are not even an important part of the  process. Lenin contemptuously calls your type “Useful Idiots.”  You may think that this is simply a matter of men watching a stripper, far from it.  Unchecked, this sort of City Council crap provides a basis for socialism and bigoted hatred under the control of somebody who in all likely hood is more qualified to defuse a nuclear weapon than carry out social engineering.  . And it’s happening without you even knowing it because your eyes, are transfixed,  on the Windsor Tavern.

[Lost in Manitoba]

It was just a day or two ago when I heard something like this here in MB. Apperently, Bars that have strippers must have maximum insurance for their premises now. I can't recall the actuall dollar figure, but it was prohibitive to any smaller establishment, which includes pretty much every bar not located in a city (and MB only has two of those). From what I gather, this move was made after some peeler slipped on stage and broke her arm. Now if this was the case and the reason, fine, extreme maybe but fine. However, it would seem that it is a convenient way to rid the province of a contoversial profession.

[KrustyKidd]

No, the $50 fee covers a $25 OPP criminal search and filing charges. nothing more. Like myself and any other small business contractor, the girls should have their own coverage. If I owned a bar I would certainly want to see some sort of disability insurance before I allowed them to slip and slide, leaving me open.