Where to place strip clubs? They create jobs and attract tourists, no? That’s what club owners maintain.
What Bridgeport’s nightlife may lack in variety could be made up for in abundance. At least when it comes to strip clubs. City planners are considering regulations that would limit adult entertainment clubs to non-residential areas. Would such a regulation launch a plethora of pole dancing?
This is one of those quality of life issues that allows mayoral candidates to juice up rhetoric on the campaign trail. But which way? Strip club devotees are voters too. Club Allure on East Main Street in a residential area has become the flashpoint for location regulation of boobs and bikinis. Strips joints are protected under free speech but it appears municipalities can restrict them to designated areas. So, the question is where to isolate them. There’s a movement to restrict strip joints to industrial areas.
When she served on the City Council State Rep. Auden Grogins, the “Blonde Banshee from Black Rock,” was on a one-person jihad against adult entertainment clubs. Keep those places away from my neighborhood, they lower property values, she’d say about the joints on Fairfield Avenue.
So now the issue has popped back up. Let’s see what the City Attorney’s Office and zoning commissioners propose.
Isn’t “BADA” short for bring a Democrat along?
Bada Bling
We no longer have “Industry” in B’port so they should be allowed to open anywhere they want to. All of the High School and College graduates have scored the really good paying jobs at Home Depot, Burger King and Wendy’s. Please, strippers and pole dancers have to make a honest living too.
Strip clubs are an “industry,” in a manner of speaking.
Hey … Malloy is looking for places to show the Chinese Tourist Board.
This is a perfectly prime example of how hopelessly inadequate the leadership of Bridgeport is. This very same issue is being heard right now in the Federal Court House. A tony lower Fairfield County township is about to be thrown out of court for attempting to violate innumerable federal and state commercial codes including the 1st Amendment. Doesn’t anyone in your city hall pay attention to what is going on in the surrounding communities?
BEACON2 has his own website. It’s called Only In Bridgeport!!!
Once again John Gomes raises serious questions and once again he seems to be very short on answers!!! Yes the pension situation is very serious but what is his answer? No FRB + No Tax Increase + No answers = More problems.
There will be tax increases, Grin. City workers get paid by your taxes. Street lights get paid. By taxes. Water for the fire hydrants. Fuel for the police cars. City cars that are driven home to the suburbs. Most all paid by taxes. And so are pension plan promises where your actuarial adviser keeps projecting increasing costs from not funding fully today! No magic. No hocus-pocus, unless you cannot or do not read the documents we all pay for!
So if your total City expenses add up to more than a Mayor is willing to fund in order to flatline taxes for residential homeowners to enhance re-election possibilities, it creates a problem for that Mayor, doesn’t it? Finch answer: substantially ignore Pension Plan A funding against best advice of actuary, and beg the State for a waiver. Buy time!
GRIN REAPER answer: attack BEACON2 posting on the subject. Attack John Gomes for no answer. BEACON2 answer: real and politically possible answers start coming whenever a subject is widely known and discussed. Had Finch declared that $15 Million or $18 Million had to be paid in 2008, 2009 or 2010, would B&A meetings look like a puppet show? Probably not, there would have been cuts and questioning like we have not seen in years in this City. So that is one answer, share the information about our plight and Gomes, and Foster, and Kohut, and Coviello, and many more average people are all for OPEN, ACCOUNTABLE, and TRANSPARENT. How about you, Grin? What say you?
And another answer as suggested by BEACON2 would be to explore a re-funding of the Pension Obligation Bond, or if not possible, to explore the reasons that a lower interest rate is not attainable in this low interest rate environment.
If you don’t care for my subject matter, have the guts to say so. If you don’t like the length of my writing as others have said, ignore what I say. If you don’t like the frequency, tell Lennie about it. Ray or he will limit me when they think I am out of bounds. On this site I know that “size and frequency” are issues that are humorously and indirectly referenced by some, but obviously from a writer’s viewpoint, I don’t have these issues.
Finally I will not self-censure my comments that come as a result of reflection and fact. That is what this site is all about unless I am sorely mistaken. I will continue as one of many writers and readers to use this site to question City issues, to discover answers, and to stimulate the minds of those who do read. Perhaps that ultimately is what may change the apathy so often reported here.
B2–You are sometimes long winded but a entertaining read all the same. You’re right, fuck them if they think you babble too much. That shows the length of their attention span.
B2,
Don’t be so hard on yourself. We are fortunate to have you. There are not many in Bridgeport who truly know everything about everything. As far as the length of your posts; remember that you are writing to people who live in Bridgeport. Not exactly a welcoming environment for a pedant.
I believe it’s called the law of diminished returns.
See. 9 words. That’s all it took.
The Finch administration has chosen Standard American Political Decision #1 on the pension matter: Punt.
Maybe it will go away. Maybe it will bother someone else.
“Après moi, le deluge.”
Jim,
Thanks for SAPD #1. Punt or “kick the can down the road” seem the same to me. You have a much longer history of close observation of administrations occupying City Hall at whatever location than do I. Why would you bother to make the attempt to fund a smaller part than you are advised by your expert, year after year? Would it have anything to do with the nature of the Pension Obligation Bond State legislation which left the City alone while Ganim and Fabrizi punted with practically no annual funding that allowed the fund to decrease so much from investment losses and retirement payouts that the State finally chased them down??? Perhaps that caused the City to talk to the State and OPM and Treasury under Governor Rell gave them “a three-year grace period” to come up with a real plan and a trickle of funding. And now the City is back in Hartford with a Democratic Governor who seems to be playing harder ball than Mayor Finch has. Do you think he will provide another “pass” for Finch when Malloy realizes the Mayor has never really told the taxpayers of the City anything about this except “no increase in taxes?” The City players who have been constant in this process are Tom Sherwood and John Stafstrom. From your viewpoint, what would you predict?
The Governator and the Legislature crowed about how they didn’t use any gimmicks and fully funded state pension obligations.
Can the Blonde Banshee and her Democratic Whips break out the chains on the above BEACON2 matter and please give us an answer?
Many say nothing will change in the city on this topic. We had on the TV show two Republican candidates (who lost) saying they would close the places down. Actually some apparently did close down, but the reason some close down and others do not is not clear. Would someone like to clarify this? And how far do they have to be from residents, schools and churches?
B2: You are right. It is kicking the can down the road.
Assuming–in a broad range–your evaluation of the available information is correct.
Assuming–broadly–the administration is not stupid or irresponsible. They kick the can because they do not have a solution to a preexisting condition. They hope one comes along. They hope. Meanwhile, stall.
But THAT is irresponsible, you might say.
I’m not disagreeing. A judgment day will come.
Let’s throw into the political mixer a political opponent to the administration. How does that opponent frame the message so actual voters understand and care? That is the trick.
I do not, by the way, accept the opinion the Bridgeport voter is necessarily dumber than your average American voter. But that voter must be presented with an alternative they believe in. I think that might make them a tougher crowd.
JIM,
The Bridgeport taxpaying, citizen voter could be a poster child for being ignored, rather than being ignorant. As a group they are not encouraged to participate in political party activity. As a group their expertise or civic spirit is not encouraged on Boards or Commissions that are left in disarray so that central control may be exerted when desired. The news media is not following the subject matter that is nuts and bolts to covering governance in the largest City in the State. There is a rock outcropping up in Hamden CT that is a State Park. It is called the Sleeping Giant. Our hope is that accurate info to empty out the multitude of secrets, lies, half-truths and misrepresentations will stimulate the Bridgeport giant to awaken, to discuss a basic way to grow, to begin to trust new leadership, to rise and vote in a manner that will advance change that advances open, accountable and transparent behavior and process.
BEACON2,
If we ever rewrite the city of BPT’s charter, or even the Declaration of Independence, I would like you to be our John Hancock.