There were a lot of people upset with a particular parking lot at Finlay Park. According to nearby residents and the city itself, the place is an asphalt-covered den of hedonism. There’s drinking, smoking, drugs, sex and — eh — probably loitering. LOITERERS!
It was a bit of a sick joke that you can get from said parking lot to Columbia’s police headquarters in less than a minute by car. Or vice-versa. In its time, the City Council limited the park’s hours from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. But, if you’re smoking crack and scoring a streetwalker, are you really that concerned about the city’s curfew regulations? Wednesday, the city said, “Fie to you, regulation!” and threw out proposals to keep closing the park early or eliminate those parking spots.
Many people who spoke at the hearing said the staff recommendations would result in the city showing favoritism to Governors Hill and treating Finlay differently from other city parks.
“We know what happens when we have dual system, don’t we,” said Lonnie Randolph, president of the South Carolina NAACP.
Opponents of the measures said the issue is park management and law enforcement. Supporters said the steps are necessary to ensure that Finlay is safe and that Governors Hill residents are not disturbed.
Eh, yeah, we thought about that. But, while telling our inner Grigorii Zinoviev to put down the scarlet banner, the Governors Hill residents are city residents like everyone else and shouldn’t be punished for being rich and involved in their community. After all, these guys could have bought houses in the suburbs, but decided to locate downtown instead. And nobody likes being next to a crime spot.
What immediately jumps to mind, though, is MLK Park next to Five Points. You can go there close to any night of the week and get your crack fix. You can probably get serviced, too, if a homeless guy’s talk about “you got to have that cheese if you want to get pleased” is any indication. What’s not too cool is that the surrounding neighborhood is of a definite lower socioeconomic order, so they don’t have the time to complain to the City Council or inclination to think the Council would care.
And, it’s being policed by the absolute worst sector of the Columbia police force. We never had a problem with the Five Points-area cops, but that fact has been reported. By respectable journalists. As fact. So, there’s that. With the Council’s actions, can we go down to Lee Street and talk to the the drug and sex peddlers and say, “Hey — you want to take that uptown?”
The stories making news on this getaway afternoon, are, not surprisingly, coming out of the courtroom. We’ve got opportunistic attorney generals and lobbyists taking a break from payday lending, and nothing resolved, quite yet.
McMaster v. The Vast Series of Tubes
A federal judge put a temporary kibosh on Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster’s war against liste de Craig’s, which means it’s time to drop the slips of the paper back into the hat and select a new crisis.
S.C. students, et. al. v. Gov. No
The last time Chapin High School senior Casey Edwards saw her case go to court, the judge threw it out because it had not reached appropriate ripeness. Now, she has been joined by USC Law student Justin Williams as they attempt to sue Gov. Mark Sanford into accepting the federal budget stabilization dollars. Dwight Drake, taking a break from being the punch to Tommy Moore‘s jab for the payday lending industry, will again be the lead attorney for the plaintiffs.
S.C. Association of School Administrators v. Gov. No
According to a late-afternoon tweet and subsequent correction (O’CONNOR! ::fist waving::), SCASA is suing to make Sanford accept the budget stabilization money, as well. Supt. of Ed. Jim Rex is also named in the suit.
All of this litigation (which we lay at the feet of the Sanford and McMaster), not to mention the Governor’s smooth move earlier this week, just goes to prove again that, no matter for all the griping about lawsuits in South Carolina, nobody is willing to do what it takes to resolve conflicts outside the courtroom. Over here, we believe that this is because, excuse us, way too fucking many people in state politics are attorneys or have law degrees. We never trusted those types when we were in school, preferring instead to cavort with the degenerates in the PR and journalism programs.
It should be a general rule of thumb that just because you can bring a lawsuit, doesn’t mean that you should.
According to an AP story, Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster‘s foray into women of the night is his first in dealing with prostitution since being elected to office. While not as blatantly political as his predecessor, Charlie Condon, this interesting fact nonetheless susses out the headline-grabbing nature of McMaster’s fisticuffs with Craigslist.
“Why Craigslist? Newspapers run the same ads, but they have people locally who would stand up for them, and he didn’t want to alienate the newspapers that would be reporting on his campaign,” USC law professor Ann Bartow said in the story.
With this story petering out and McMaster blowing his wad so early in the gubernatorial race — oversaturation can be a problem — it is only a matter of time until he goes underground for a couple weeks and emerges with his next biggest law enforcement problem that South Carolina could possibly face. But, with water and hookers out of the way, what else could there possibly be?
Maybe he and his staffers should be developing a deep rapid response file when the five other candidates in the race start hitting him on not being able to convict a dungeon rapist, or coming up with better ideas.
Anybody who says online prostitution ads are more of a problem in overall crime than, say, crack, is deluding themselves. It would be more interesting, and a better use of his office, for McMaster to try to aggressively tackle the crack problem, but that won’t get him on the “Today” show.
Atty. Gen. Henry McMaster has looked like he is doing a version of political island hopping on his way to announcing his gubernatorial bid. First it was the incomprehensible interstate water battle, and now it’s a one-man war on that naughty Craigslist and its assortment of women (and men, and trannies) that will, say, provide you company for a couple hundred an hour.
Never mind the legal noodle-twisting it takes to figure out how a law enforcement official, from a state a Web site is not headquartered in, can charge, indict and convict said Web site proprietor. It was unknown to us at WR that the S.C. Attorney General’s Office has international jurisdiction. Maybe he can do something about the outrageous sales tax you have to pay on everything in Europe. Because that’s bullshit, and there is no “happy ending” with a VAT.
Why does the man have to playa hate? Hey, a political consultant comes in from DC or New York or Texas, and he’s shacked up at the Clarion or the Hilton, and needs a little company. It’s not like before Operation Lost Trust, when it was no problem to arrange a college girl and a bowl of blow for a good night. So, he jumps on the complimentary wifi, goes on Craigslist, and decides he would like to meet, oh, “Brandy,” who, though her picture is blurry, promises to be “young, hot and ready.”
What else could a hack want for a couple Benjamins? And Ol’ Henry wants to take it all away.
At WR, we did not know that prostitution was such a big problem in Spartanburg County, but Sen. Lee Bright believes it is, to the point that he has created a new bill to levy more penalties on ladies of the night and the gentlemen that pay their college tuition um, no, enjoy a good tranny, wait, no, are Clemson fans, right: partake of their services.
As most people know, selling yoni for money is prohibited in most parts of the United States. The difference is that this bill will allow the state to take property from your local call girl to, well, satisfy the new regulation that states any residence or conveyance used in an act of prostitution is forfeited over to the government, along with other personal property and money.
Considering that the economy is tanking, the state budget is in dire straits and the education system has needed an overhaul for fifty years, it is obvious that the illustrious senator from Roebuck has hit upon one of the pressing issues that need to be resolved in the Palmetto State.
