I find it astounding that a city council should interfere with a man repairing his own boat in his own backyard. I wonder what would have happened to my father and his two friends, when they built one in their teens, if this kind of nosey parkering activities had been indulged by Rome city council in their time. And how much did this nonsense cost?
You don't get my point. My point is, what on God's green earth is a city council doing wasting time on this kind of crap? These things, of coure, happen anywhere, but in Italy, if they did, they would end up in court, with both factions taking their lawyers and paying their own costs. Who ever thought up the bright idea of encouraging people to waste public time and money by making this a council matter?
I do understand your point, but it remains that this story doesn't surprise me in the least. In a country where the typical juvenile response to someone asking 'please don't do that' is 'it's a free country; you can't make me!' far too often the retaliation to to find someone who can make you.
I'm not saying that Mr. Holland is acting childishly. If anything, I think the neighbor (see my other comment) is the one acting childishly. Bylaws get enacted all the time in response to neighborhood complaints, both in the US and Canada. And often, after a few years, these bylaws are politely ignored (until someone else gets a bee in their bonnet, of course). In my city, there's a bylaw forbidding hanging wet clothes in backyards, on the grounds that they are an eyesore. However, I've been hanging up my laundry for 5 years and no one has said anything. Judging from the number of clotheslines I see in my neighborhood, it looks like a lot of my neighbors ignore the bylaw as well.
Americans using bylaws to quarrel with each other is nothing
I have pleasant memories of my mother hanging clothes out in the yard. They smelled wonderful afterwards. My kids have been forbidden to aquire this memory.
The town I live in now won't allow my cat outside, but will allow me to do almost nothing about the rabbits eating the garden. And have mercy on me if my front yard tree droops to within 8ft of the sidewalk!
I'll also add that I think the tensions in this community over this ship probably have as much to do with the downturn in the US economy as anything. The neighbors (especially, but not exclusively Mr. Lugo) probably are feeling frustrated and rather powerless in the face of sliding property values. They really can't do anything about the economy as a whole, but they can lash out at Mr. Holland.
I won't argue with you there! It's not neighborly at all.
My only point is that you listed this a "you can't make it up" item, but it's actually (and sadly) rather typical. The details may vary, but the general framework is well known on this continent. If a disgruntled party can find enough others to agree with him/her, getting City Hall to push a personal agenda works.
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I'm not saying that Mr. Holland is acting childishly. If anything, I think the neighbor (see my other comment) is the one acting childishly. Bylaws get enacted all the time in response to neighborhood complaints, both in the US and Canada. And often, after a few years, these bylaws are politely ignored (until someone else gets a bee in their bonnet, of course). In my city, there's a bylaw forbidding hanging wet clothes in backyards, on the grounds that they are an eyesore. However, I've been hanging up my laundry for 5 years and no one has said anything. Judging from the number of clotheslines I see in my neighborhood, it looks like a lot of my neighbors ignore the bylaw as well.
Americans using bylaws to quarrel with each other is nothing
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PS: Bylaws forbidding line drying clothes make me mad, because it basically forbids people from conserving energy! That is outrageous to me!
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The town I live in now won't allow my cat outside, but will allow me to do almost nothing about the rabbits eating the garden. And have mercy on me if my front yard tree droops to within 8ft of the sidewalk!
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Sad, but again, not surprising.
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My only point is that you listed this a "you can't make it up" item, but it's actually (and sadly) rather typical. The details may vary, but the general framework is well known on this continent. If a disgruntled party can find enough others to agree with him/her, getting City Hall to push a personal agenda works.
Reply
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