Who's watching the store? OR A Bridge between them?

I had never heard of 24-hour, no-frills, unstaffed health clubs before this morning. I suppose I can see possible problems. After all, seeing possible problems is something I seem to have a knack for. And, according to at least one Administrative Law Judge, present city code does require that staff be on premises at all times.

If I read this morning’s newspaper story correctly, David Thune, current and past councilmember from City Council District [often called “Ward”] Two is against them and wants the law to stay the way the ALJ is interpreting it. I am surmising that if the ALJ opinion is not upheld that he would want an ordinance adopted to require that they be staffed whenever they are open.

Another former councilmember from that same district, Mayor Coleman the Second, is quoted in the DPP as saying, "It can't be OK everywhere else and be somehow more risky in St. [sic] Paul." [Note to the Mayor’s fans, of whom there must be some: “Sic” is inserted because that is what is done here at CCM when we find the name of our city unnecessarily abbreviated. However, I suspect that His Honor made the statement orally and it is just the paper’s defective, penny-pinching style sheet which instituted the abbreviation. So save the letters, or at least send them on other things.]

This is quite a choice, having to choose between these two men, who usually seem to only be separated by the High Bridge.

It has been traditional in our culture to recognize that problems are possible in a lot of businesses and to adopt codes to protect the public from unscrupulous or incompetent operators. We license, charter, or regulate restaurants and bars, building contractors, motor vehicles and drivers, pawn shops, utilities, and scores of other things.

Sometimes [probably most of the time] we regulate well or at least “pretty good”. Other times we fail. And sometimes we forget why we license and legislate or enforce from outdated models.

Old timers may remember [probably 25 or 30 years ago] when Sister Rosalind wanted to open her first massage center in the city. She had to face a lot of legislative hostility because we had several places which had been known as “massage parlors” in town which had been serving as fronts for prostitution and for whom the city had adopted some drastic regulations. [Regulations don’t always work as they are intended. By the time Sister Rosalind was applying for her licenses, all or almost all of the former “massage parlors” had quit offering massages and were no longer affected by them. They were still open, just weren’t “massage parlors” anymore.]

I sometimes have wondered if her fight might have been too difficult to pursue had she not been a middle-aged Catholic nun, but she got changes made after telling our city leaders that she resented the proposition that she and her employees were in the prostitution business and were entitled for more dignified treatment. Ordinances were altered, but they still worked from the anti-prostitution perspective for several more years, including requiring that masseur/masseuse licenses be issued by the City Council and that the licensee’s name be on the City Council agenda and minutes.

And I would be remiss if I forget to mention that having regulations guarantees the public that they will be enforced. For one thing, government bureaucrats seem to find it easier to hassle those with licenses than those who operate without them. Any licensed taxicab driver or owner in our city knows that

Thune says that the new style health clubs present a neighborhood issue and threatens to enlist the support of neighborhood organizations, especially District Councils. Maybe he will indeed get such help, but I suspect that while they may give him some lip service that most neighborhood organizations are already so deeply committed to fighting more obvious crime and the decay in our housing situations and developing stable business and social environments to jump on that bandwagon really hard.