Banned in NYC!

The New York Post offers a year-end gift: a list of things the New York city council tried to ban this year, some successfully.

* Trans-fats.

* Aluminum baseball bats.

* The purchase of tobacco by 18- to 20-year-olds.

* Foie gras.

* Pedicabs in parks.

* New fast-food restaurants (but only in poor neighborhoods).

* Lobbyists from the floor of council chambers.

* Lobbying city agencies after working at the same agency.

* Vehicles in Central and Prospect parks.

* Cell phones in upscale restaurants.

* The sale of pork products made in a processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., because of a unionization dispute.

* Mail-order pharmaceutical plans.

* Candy-flavored cigarettes.

* Gas-station operators adjusting prices more than once daily.

* Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

* Wal-Mart

Pit bulls were just added to the list, as well. Here's hoping 2007 goes a bit better.

Comments

christianarchisti | December 29, 2006, 5:45pm | #

You can add me to your list of things banned from nyc but then I like it that way to.

matt | December 29, 2006, 5:47pm | #

* Lobbyists from the floor of council chambers.

* Lobbying city agencies after working at the same agency.
==========================================
Ok, these two are good ideas, actually.

uncle sam | December 29, 2006, 5:57pm | #

Are they competing with San Francisco?

The Wine Commonsewer | December 29, 2006, 6:18pm | #

Aluminum baseball bats SHOULD be illegal. Just not right.

andy | December 29, 2006, 6:22pm | #

What fucking nanny-state assholes.

Why anyone would choose to live in that city is beyond me.

TrickyVic | December 29, 2006, 6:22pm | #

I think cars are banned from central park during certain times. But there are cross streets that run through the park that carry traffic.

The last 4 elections we voted for a Republican Mayor and Rudy may be coming your way in 2008.

TrickyVic | December 29, 2006, 6:30pm | #

New York was way more cool when I first got here. Cops wouldn't give you a second look unless you were really screwing up, then they would beat the crap out of you.

Franklin Harris | December 29, 2006, 7:12pm | #

Have the terrorists stopped hating us for our freedoms yet?

B.P. | December 29, 2006, 7:19pm | #

Some day a real [council] will come and wash all the [improper behavior] off the streets.

dhex | December 29, 2006, 7:20pm | #

"Why anyone would choose to live in that city is beyond me."

have you seen the rest of america?

fer reals!

also:

www.overheardinnewyork.com

Paul | December 29, 2006, 7:22pm | #

Have the terrorists stopped hating us for our freedoms yet?

Patience, Franklin Harris, patience... all in good time. Overactive senators and congressdweebs are burning the midnight oil as we speak.

Jonathan C. Hohensee | December 29, 2006, 8:01pm | #

These are a lot of things they tried to ban. I'd like to see a list of stuff that was really banned, stuff that was close to being banned, and stuff that just came out of political posturing.

highnumber | December 29, 2006, 8:11pm | #

stuff that just came out of political posturing

Isn't that the whole list?

Murphy | December 29, 2006, 8:20pm | #

To be fair, aluminum bats are un-American.

Ruthless | December 29, 2006, 8:33pm | #

"Make the World Go Away"

It's a country music song. (As is "I've Got Tears in My Ears From Lying on My Back Crying over You.")

Mark Borok | December 29, 2006, 8:52pm | #

But can you pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?

Ken | December 29, 2006, 9:02pm | #

I find the list lamentable, but it would be more acceptable if the NY Post could have been on it...

Eddie Murphy | December 29, 2006, 9:30pm | #

Fortunately they haven't banned the tranny ads in the back of the Village Voice

Karl the Libertarian | December 29, 2006, 10:48pm | #

Those fucking nanny state ass hole bitches should stop fucking getting into other peoples business, you know what I friggin' mean? Those fuckin' commies should be shot or sent to Cuba to replace Castro. What will they ban next? Couches for causing people to become lazy and thus fat? There's a line that must be drawn, and they've stepped WAY over it. Damn them to hell!!!!!!!!!!! BETTER DEAD THAN RED!!!!

Brooklynite | December 29, 2006, 11:30pm | #

BFD. Get the vehicles out of my Prospect Park. Honestly, can anyone really say they care about getting rid of these things?

madpad | December 30, 2006, 12:56am | #

I'm ok on the lobbying bans and the pit bull thing...but the rest is insane.

dhex | December 30, 2006, 1:32am | #

nah, pit bulls are nice dogs, normally.

Brad | December 30, 2006, 3:43am | #

Except for the lobbyist stuff... What a bunch of pink ass pansy socialists.

Chuck | December 30, 2006, 9:45am | #

But can you pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?

No. It carries twice the penalty of diddling your digit in Dallas.

Sam Franklin | December 30, 2006, 9:46am | #

They should have banned the eating of dogs and cats. I could get behind that.

I wonder if the bans that were passed will cause NYC land values to go up or down in the aggregate. I am guessing up. I am guessing that that was the secret criteria used in passing the bans that passed. Forecasted land values. The Council passes bans that they think will increase the tax base. Cause that is how they make more money.

glv80 | December 30, 2006, 12:01pm | #

The following is from my blog in response to this post and further commentary about how restaurants are doomed. Enjoy:


The good folks from New York City would be wise to take a look at how life,liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is once again being defeated by a bunch of establishment hacks.

Though I do favor a voluntary cell phone ban in restaurants. Being that I work in one, I have little tolerance for people who are yapping on their cell phones while i'm trying to take someone's order, sometimes even their own.

One business that I really feel his doomed in the next few years is the restaurant business. Smoking bans are one thing. Trans fats are another. Even cell phones! But the minimum wage increase that the new Democrat majority and now, President Bush seem all too eager to support will bury the industry. Small independent restaurants and bistros will be all but finished. It will give perfect credibility for businesses to look towards illegal aliens, instead of the young and underprivilaged. They won't have jobs, there will be no drive to succeed or even start a business to begin with, and we finally understand the harsh realities of liberal wishful thinking. Let's not even talk about what kind of prices consumers will be paying in these restuarants! This is economic justice? No, it's theft and everyone is getting robbed at the end of the day.

It's another victory for the welfare state. Another victory for the government, you know the folks who know your body better than you do.

Lamar | December 30, 2006, 12:12pm | #

I've heard how the minimum wage increase will supposedly hurt small businesses, but never how it would harm the restaurant industry. Please explain, in all seriousness, how it will affect the restaurant biz. Waiters don't have the normal minimum wage because of tips, the mexican dishwasher is illegal so a minimum wage doesn't apply. I can only claim to know 20 or 30 people in the restaurant biz (in NYC that's nothing), but none are even remotely affected by the minimum wage. What's the real story? Show me where all these young and underprivileged kids are "going" to lose their job opportunities. That ship sailed 20 years ago, not at some vague point in the future.

dhex | December 30, 2006, 12:34pm | #

"The Council passes bans that they think will increase the tax base. "

i'm fairly sure that property values would go up regardless of various city council actions.

fuck, terrorist attacks didn't even put much of a dent in them.

Larry A | December 30, 2006, 12:52pm | #

* Lobbyists from the floor of council chambers.

Right on. If lobbyists are on the council floor everyone can see what they're doing and who they're doing it to. Lobbyists belong in the lobby, hence the name. There they can find dark corners and influence legislation without anyone knowing what's going on.

I'd ask for a list of things already banned in NYC (besides drugs, prostitutes, and the other usual suspects) but I really don't have time to read a multi-page post.

Johncjackson | December 30, 2006, 1:39pm | #

Thank God Mike Mussina spoke up for aluminum bats.

Ted | December 30, 2006, 6:04pm | #

Rest easy. No one has banned dimwitted libertarian sloganeering. Taxation is prostate cancer!

Amy Alkon | December 30, 2006, 6:59pm | #

Idiots. I'm not for bans at all, but if you're going to ban any kind of poultry product (presumably on animal cruelty grounds), it shouldn't be foie gras. Unfortunately, people have a tendency to anthropomorphize the foie gras producing ducks and geese. They don't have the same gag reflex we do. I guess you could say they're more like porn stars. (Oops, sorry.) Anyway, the gavage process on geese is not equivalent to what it would be in humans. Furthermore, foie gras producers like Sonoma Foie Gras treat their birds like something close to pets (except that we generally don't off our dogs and cats at the end of the season, but oh well!). If the animal cruelty whiners want to go after somebody ban-worthy, they should get some of the major factory-farm poultry sellers out of NYC supermarkets. Now, those birds live in some very cruel conditions. Worse, even, than my tiny old apartment in New York, where I could order egg and cheese on a roll delivered, and open the door and pay the guy without getting out of bed.

Ray G | December 30, 2006, 7:34pm | #

Hey, pitbulls don't kill people, . . . people kill people.

If you treated a min-poodle the way I've seen some people treat their pitbulls, that little poodle would be a menace to society too, just not as capable of a menace.

Baghdad is a global draw for terrorists, NYC and SanFran are a global draw for, . .. well, you know, that kind of people. . .

Rhywun | December 31, 2006, 4:16am | #

Yeah, banning traffic in parks is SO nanny state.

Chris | December 31, 2006, 10:34am | #

It fucks with my head that even on this blog I see people supporting bans. This place is my sanity solace, folks, please stop it.

Governments shouldn't be banning anything, ever.

joe | December 31, 2006, 11:35am | #

There isn't really a good place to post this, so I'll do it here.

I predict that 2007 will do to global warming denial what 2006 did to Iraq War boosterism. Public support for the reality-phobic position will collapse. The media will stop pretending that there are two legitimate sides to the debate, and report that there are some people who recognize reality and a smaller group who refuse to come to grips with it. We'll be treated to Tony Snow declaring that George Bush has always recognized the dangers of global warming, and has been a leader in efforts to combat it.

We will also be treated to numerous conservative pundits writing columns similar to Jonah Goldberg's faux-mea-culpa about his support for the Iraq War - explaining that they were wrong, but they were right to be wrong, because the people who were right forced them to be wrong by being so partisan as to say they were wrong.

There will be global warming dead-enders, but they'll be treated like Rick Santorum, Donald Rumsfeld, or Clifford May.

Wishing I were THAT stoned | December 31, 2006, 12:29pm | #

There isn't really a good place to ask this, so I'll do it here.

Could you hook me up with your dealer, joe?

kevrob | December 31, 2006, 4:39pm | #

Notice how joe tried to slip a planted assumption past us by not referring to anthropogenic global warming. I've been a "believer" in global climate change, both warming and cooling, ever since I learned about ice ages in grammar school. But because I am skeptical about whether human activity has been significant enough to disturb the natural pattern of warming and cooling, I'm labelled a "denier." Nice try.

Kevin

mk | December 31, 2006, 6:42pm | #

FWIW, I think joe is absolutely right.

Lamar | December 31, 2006, 7:48pm | #

"But because I am skeptical about whether human activity has been significant enough to disturb the natural pattern of warming and cooling, I'm labelled a 'denier.'"

Is it safe to say that there is a "planted assumption" in your post that humans can't or shouldn't do anything to stop the spread of global warming? Your post seems to assume that Joe tried to slip one past us, but I think his post and assumptions are clear. I also think kevrob is wrong on the science. The question is whether we can do something to improve the situation, not whether we have mucked up the environment. The planted assumption here is that my opinion means a damn thing.

Mike Laursen | December 31, 2006, 9:39pm | #

I wonder if forbidden foie gras tastes just a little better than legal foie gras.

Timon19 | December 31, 2006, 10:58pm | #

How, exactly, does something "global" spread, except to places "extra-global"?

Tym | January 1, 2007, 3:03am | #

I don't have nor do I like pit bulls but it is really a nature vs. nurture thing. Some dogs are more or less agressive, but viciousness is a learned behaviour. Oh well, I prefer cats...

joe | January 1, 2007, 1:38pm | #

kevrob,

I also didn't mention that the globe becomes slightly warmer, on average, when it is 91 million miles away from the sun, and slightly cooler, on average, when it is 93 million miles away from the sun.

You know what? I think my point was perfectly clear, regardless. And yes, you are a denier.

TrickyVic | January 1, 2007, 4:04pm | #

"""We'll be treated to Tony Snow declaring that George Bush has always recognized the dangers of global warming, and has been a leader in efforts to combat it."""

Joe, this wouldn't surprise me one bit. Bush is talking about global warming and the polar bears.

"""We will also be treated to numerous conservative pundits writing columns similar to Jonah Goldberg's faux-mea-culpa about his support for the Iraq War - explaining that they were wrong, but they were right to be wrong, because the people who were right forced them to be wrong by being so partisan as to say they were wrong.""""

I can't say I fully agree they will use that excuse but I do think there will be two more years of right-wing pundints jumping off the Bush wagon and then coming up with all kinds of excuses as to why they were wrong. A lot of face saving to come. Take Limbaugh for example.

I love asking my right wing friends, that are now waking up, why they felt obligated to force their wrongness on those who knew they were wrong and why they has such disrespect for the truth. They ususally have no answer.

Yep, I'm having fun with my right-wing friends.

Isaac Bartram | January 1, 2007, 5:04pm | #

I predict that 2007 will do to global warming denial what 2006 did to Iraq War boosterism.

Of course, on the other hand it may come to light that "Global Warming" was never anything but a conspiracy by Mrs Thatcher and the Tories to destroy the coal miners' union in the UK and get the general populace on board for massive subsidies for nuclear power plants.

Frankly the notion that civilization as we know it will end because of evil SUV drivers and their evil SUV driving is as absolutely silly as the notion that civilization as we know it will end because of evil homos fucking each other in the ass and wanting to be married.

Of course, again, there are always self-righteous busy-bodies who cannot stand to have people make their own choices about what they want to do. I suppose it just all depends on what kind of self-righteous busy-body you are.

Brooklynite | January 1, 2007, 5:52pm | #

Isaac, the only people I can't stand more than self-righteous busybodies are people who decide to argue against strawmen. Who is making the claim "SUV driving will end civilization"? Why argue using facts when you can argue against exagerrated rhetoric?

And your gay marriage analogy is completely phony.

Isaac Bartram | January 1, 2007, 7:06pm | #

Brooklynite

If you had not figured out that the post was less than serious at this point...

"Of course, on the other hand it may come to light that "Global Warming" was never anything but a conspiracy by Mrs Thatcher and the Tories to destroy the coal miners' union in the UK and get the general populace on board for massive subsidies for nuclear power plants."

...I have no idea what to say.

In other words, I'm having an exceedingly hard time taking most everybody's positions on this (or for that matter just about any other subject) seriously.

Isaac Bartram | January 1, 2007, 7:09pm | #

Who is making the claim "SUV driving will end civilization"?

Oh, but, by the way, do you never listen to popular media?

wally the bird | January 1, 2007, 8:51pm | #

Looks like the BIG APPLE has too many worms in its core and MICHEAL BLOOMBURG is the biggist worm of them all

kevrob | January 1, 2007, 9:20pm | #

Isaac, that conspiracy link is one of the most beautifully nuts things I have ever seen.

No, joe, you didn't mention the climactic effects of aphelion v. perihelion. The folks at NASA
don't think that is too significant, either. I already knew that it's the tilt of the earth, not our changing distance from the sun, that gives us the seasons, too.

As for "denial", "It might not be so" is not "It ain't so." There's also, "You've found the symptom, but maybe not the cause." Forgive me if I don't take the word of some city bureaucrat who has ghu-knows-what relevant technical background.

Lamar:

My skepticism regarding whether human activity has been significant enough to disturb the natural pattern of warming and cooling says nothing about whether humans can or should do anything to stop any apparent warming. It does merely raise the question: if we didn't primarily cause the warming, would it be wise to try to thwart it? Of course, even if the process is natural, we could be making it worse, and changing our behavior might help at the margins, but I'm not a climate scientist, and I don't have the technical knowledge to make such a judgment. Neither are most of the "scientists" plumping for increased government controls on the economy in the name of climate change. I'm not ready to trust the watermelons trying to regulate energy use to fit the Greening Of America/Small Is Beautiful ideology they've been pushing for over 30 tears. If it were time for a new Ice Age, would we have a chance in hell of ameliorating it? If temps are fated to head in the other direction, could we develop sufficient tech in time to slow that? Hell if I know.

Kevin

Isaac Bartram | January 2, 2007, 2:40pm | #

Isaac, that conspiracy link is one of the most beautifully nuts things I have ever seen.

Ain't it, though? I love it. :)

Isaac Bartram | January 3, 2007, 12:31am | #

Although, I must confess, Kevin, while it is one thing to claim that the Tories started the GW story to achieve their ends it is an entirely different matter to understand that they may have realized that exploiting the evolving science might be quite useful to achieving two of their primary policy goals, viz: undermining the power of the coal miners' union and promoting subsidies for nuclear power.

Just because there is not an actual conspiracy does not mean that nobody made plans. It looks to me like the writers of the article made a whole correlation/causation error.

Jeff | January 4, 2007, 3:33pm | #

Joe,

I'd have to say that its you that is in denial. You have been conned by the likes of Al Gore and the green movement, you know it and yet you still want to act like there is a consensus on "man made" global warming. The IPPC's own data shows that .4 of the .6 temperature rise for the last 100 years occured between 1900 and 1940, before CO2 was on the rise. It also shows that average temeratures DROPPED from 1940 to 1970 while CO2 was on the rise.
I guess it's true that a man cannot be reasoned away from an opinion that was not arrived at by reason.