You'd think he would have had something better to do.
A couple weeks back, the Town of Niagara's tee ball league was in its full Tuesday-night swing at the diamonds off Military Road. For those who haven't been a kid, or parent to one, in the last 30 years or so, tee ball is a developmental version of baseball, in which players learn to swing a bat properly by hitting the ball off of, you guessed it, a tee.
Most of the time, every kid gets to bat an equal number of times, and often, no one keeps score. It's meant to be a fun way for kids to learn the Great American Pastime.
On this particular night, a couple of children not involved in the action on the diamond added another slice of Americana by setting up an old-fashioned lemonade stand.
The Man quickly stifled their initiative. A town police officer, evidently with way too much time on his hands, demanded a permit. When the kids couldn't produce one, Officer Friendly ordered them to cease and desist.
Had the police been as dogged in the cartoon town that was home to the Peanuts gang, Lucy's nickel psychiatric stand would have wound up getting her arrested for practicing medicine without a license.
The Town of Niagara being a fairly close-knit place, word spread from mother to mother and business to business.
A minor flap, to be sure. And there are good reasons permits are required to operate a business, particularly those that serve edible products.
But, c'mon. This wasn't a case of somebody running an after-hours juke joint, serving dinners out of their kitchen, or forcing their children to sell homemade cookies outside a supermarket. It was a couple kids making a few quarters -- probably not enough to justify the effort in the first place.
Better they should have sat home on their couch and played video games, at least in the eyes of the law.
It wasn't exactly good business from the law enforcement point of view, either. This is the kind of thing that makes proponents of a regionalized police force positively salivate. If the officer in question really couldn't make himself more useful on a summer evening in the Town of Niagara, there was surely someplace his enthusiasm could have been utilized, like on a weekend night in Niagara Falls or the City of Lockport.
As for all those non-smokers state officials and anti-tobacco zealots insisted were going to flood local bars and restaurants once the statewide ban went into effect on July 24, the proprietors of those establishments are still waiting.
Maybe this new breed of barflies are waiting for the weather to turn bad.
Places fortunate, or intuitive, enough to have an outdoor seating area are treading water, though several patioed taverns reported revenues have still been below average, because some potential patrons don't know they can smoke there and others spend significantly less when they're not bellied up to the bar.
That teeny loophole has about a month of effectiveness left, anyway. The law dictates that any such outdoor smoking area not have a roof or awning, even if said covering is 50 feet off the ground.
To make matters worse for the hundreds of licensed establishments in Niagara County, the State Liquor Authority altered its policy on license fees this year. Instead of paying year by year, taverns and restaurants now have to pay for two years up front, with no refund if the establishment closes before the license expires. For your average gin mill, that's a bill approaching $3,000, due at the same time the smoking ban is snuffing the profit margin in most places.
There's not much anybody can do about the SLA's double dipping, but while proprietors wait for lawsuits against the smoking ban to hit the courts, their voter-registration drive is gaining momentum.
After a prominent piece in the Buffalo News on Friday, more than 100 business people, service workers and ban opponents met at The Pier on Buffalo's waterfront that night. Organizers are hoping to register 15,000 new voters in Erie and Niagara counties. Beer distributors are also getting involved and will be distributing packets detailing the campaign to every licensed establishment in the coming weeks, said Judi Justiana of Judi's Lounge on Military Road.
There's been talk of another mass shutdown of the state-run Quick Draw lottery game, but Justiana said she doesn't know if that's necessary.
"My Quick Draw business is down 40 percent since July 24," Justiana said. "There are no bodies on the bar stools playing it. I think that sends any even better message to Albany. I don't have to shut down my machine -- they're going to see the figures and see what this is doing to us."
With state legislators scheduled to head back to Albany for a brief session in September, ban opponents know now may be their last, best chance to change the hugely unpopular law through political tactics.
For all their speechifying on any topic they think will keep them on the taxpayer-funded gravy train, your faithful servants in Albany only understand two things -- money and votes.
Business owners who don't receive their packets on the voter registration campaign by mid-August, or who run out of the registration applications contained within, can contact Justiana at 297-5759.
The first Niagara Wine, Food and Jazz Festival isn't until the second week of September, but there will be plenty of live music downtown in the coming weeks.
On Aug. 9, Club 427 is hosting "Rock Out the Violence," a free show featuring Paradox and Shinebox, aimed at countering the recent wave of violence at several area nightspots.
Farther down Third Street, Cafe Etc. is bringing in internationally known acoustic guitar virtuoso Adrian Legg on Aug. 13. His live performances combine the musicianship that's won him a bevy of awards both here and in his native England and a wit that earned him a gig as a commentator-at-large for National Public Radio's "All Things Considered."
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | August 5 2003 |