Controversial bill would force business owners to take down bulletproof glass

originally posted by: Edumakated
This is stupid.

However, I kind of see what they are trying to do. There are some businesses which attract the wrong kind of people and local governments often try to limit these businesses because once they get their roots in a community, they can bring down the surrounding area.

For example, I live in a very high income and nice area that borders once of the worst neighborhoods in Chicago. At the border of our community, there are a couple of convenience stores/bodegas/gas stations. These are your typical ghettofied stores with bulletproof glass, etc. What happens is the hoodrats from the bad neighborhood frequent these stores even though the stores are not actually in their community officially. The tend to bring their hoodratness behavior with them.

As such, our community has been passing zoning laws and other barriers to prevent these stores from opening because they simply attract the wrong kind of people.

The problem with the Philly example though is that it isn't the stores, but it is the actual neighborhoods these stores are located. They are too late and changing laws to clean up the stores is not necessarily going to fix the neighborhoods.

You have to clamp down on hoodrats BEFORE they actually take over a neighborhood.

Hahaha, yep, it's racially motivated alright. Thanks for proving it. I hate to break it to you, but those people exist whether there are convenience stores near by or not. Making them take down the glass is not going to change anything. Most of the people that go to the store are not robbing it. Its total slippery slope fallacy. "OMG they are taking over our neighborhood by going to a nearby store!! The horror!"

originally posted by: Shamrock6

originally posted by: DrumsRfun
a reply to: iTruthSeeker

Looks like they are helping insurance companies to raise their prices.

I doubt this will help crime and will bet money on a higher body count.

It's a long term solution to "help crime."

She wants to get rid of the stores, claiming that they cause problems in the neighborhood. What's an easy and relatively quick way to get rid of them?

Make the staff completely and totally unsafe every day. One way or another, they'll stop working.

Wouldn't there be some kind of liability lawsuit waiting to happen, if someone died behind the counter because the glass was removed?

originally posted by: peck420

originally posted by: JoshuaCox
B) from what I can tell the quote says it is a fire hazard since that window cannot be broken out in case of emergency??

This would point to a lack of resources for emergency services. There are tools for removing this type of glazing quickly. My local emergency services have, and test, said tools on a regular basis.

That whole issue should be covered by existing fire codes anyway.
It isn't like the people working in the store are locked in behind the bulletproof glass. They enter through doors, they can exit through the same ones.

originally posted by: Barcs

originally posted by: Edumakated
This is stupid.

However, I kind of see what they are trying to do. There are some businesses which attract the wrong kind of people and local governments often try to limit these businesses because once they get their roots in a community, they can bring down the surrounding area.

For example, I live in a very high income and nice area that borders once of the worst neighborhoods in Chicago. At the border of our community, there are a couple of convenience stores/bodegas/gas stations. These are your typical ghettofied stores with bulletproof glass, etc. What happens is the hoodrats from the bad neighborhood frequent these stores even though the stores are not actually in their community officially. The tend to bring their hoodratness behavior with them.

As such, our community has been passing zoning laws and other barriers to prevent these stores from opening because they simply attract the wrong kind of people.

The problem with the Philly example though is that it isn't the stores, but it is the actual neighborhoods these stores are located. They are too late and changing laws to clean up the stores is not necessarily going to fix the neighborhoods.

You have to clamp down on hoodrats BEFORE they actually take over a neighborhood.

Hahaha, yep, it's racially motivated alright. Thanks for proving it. I hate to break it to you, but those people exist whether there are convenience stores near by or not. Making them take down the glass is not going to change anything. Most of the people that go to the store are not robbing it. Its total slippery slope fallacy. "OMG they are taking over our neighborhood by going to a nearby store!! The horror!"

I don't care if they exist as long as they exist somewhere other than my community. You are missing my point though. I didn't say ALL the people who frequent the stores are hoodrats. However, a significant number are and the stores also generate a lot of direct and indirect crime as a result - robberies, drugs, loitering, etc.

The issue is that once these businesses open it is hard to close them down. Second, they have a tendency to destroy property values and lead to further decline due to the crime which hurts the entire community.

The town I live in is specifically trying to prevent further 7-11s, convenience stores, and gas stations because these stores tend to attract a lot of loiterers and dirtbags. It has nothing to do with race, but more so with class.

a reply to: iTruthSeeker

Well it's the US, so there's always a lawsuit waiting to happen.

originally posted by: butcherguy
That whole issue should be covered by existing fire codes anyway.
It isn't like the people working in the store are locked in behind the bulletproof glass. They enter through doors, they can exit through the same ones.

Fire codes cover occupants exiting, more so then emergency entering. If the occupant is in good health, exiting the high security area is easy. If the occupant is not of good health (incapacitated), the emergency crews will be forced to break down the security measures to gain access.

Most locations require keys/access cards/kill switches in lock boxes, in a non secure area, specifically to make this much easier for emergency crews, but that becomes moot if the lock box is inaccessible.

a reply to: iTruthSeeker ok well now I feel like there is more to this. Either way this is not cool. My office has ballistic walls(only for the sound proofing reasons though). This will never pass for obvious reasons.

I have no clue how this law is even being considered. These businesses should band together and sue the hell out of the city or municipality that has passed that law. On top of that make the lawsuit stipulate that whomever presented this bill lose their position in the city forever, no exception possible, maybe they will move out of town.

originally posted by: iTruthSeeker
a reply to: Edumakated

You have to clamp down on hoodrats BEFORE they actually take over a neighborhood.

I gurantee a simple sign on the front door, basically saying "armed, we take no sh*t" would help a lot.

LOL. made me think of this-

originally posted by: Edumakated
I don't care if they exist as long as they exist somewhere other than my community. You are missing my point though. I didn't say ALL the people who frequent the stores are hoodrats. However, a significant number are and the stores also generate a lot of direct and indirect crime as a result - robberies, drugs, loitering, etc.

The issue is that once these businesses open it is hard to close them down. Second, they have a tendency to destroy property values and lead to further decline due to the crime which hurts the entire community.

The town I live in is specifically trying to prevent further 7-11s, convenience stores, and gas stations because these stores tend to attract a lot of loiterers and dirtbags. It has nothing to do with race, but more so with class.

It's easy to call them hoodrats and dirt bags, but I fail to see how forcing the store to take down bullet proof glass is going to help your situation. It sounds like pure paranoia based on race, because I guarantee if it was a bunch of white guys hanging out at the store, upper class people would have no problem with it. If you don't like it move somewhere further away from bad areas. You can't just put up a wall and pretend poor people don't exist or forbid them from using convenience stores. Convenience stores are located in every town, in every state. The correlation with the crime rate is laughably stupid.

People committing crimes is going to happen regardless of whether your convenience store has bullet proof class. All this law does is put store owners lives in danger. It's not the store's fault for any of that crap, you guys are scape goating. If the people aren't at that store, they will be at another, or maybe even walking around your neighborhood instead. You act like the people travel miles just to hang at a convenience store, plus you are assuming that only bad people hang out there. The solution is not to just get rid of all convenience stores and gas stations. LOL. That's like banning all guns to prevent gun crimes. It doesn't address the root of the problem.

Could just uses these types of barriers.

Sanctuary City or No bullet proof glass, you cant have both.

Just as long as they don't need to remove the plexiglass sneeze-guards from buffets...

originally posted by: Ahabstar
Take out the glass and erect sniper nests. Simple.

That's an excellent idea. Not only does it give the perps a reason to avoid robbing the place, but it also allows the store owner to remove the bad seeds from the gene pool when they do.


-dex

This is nothing but sheer racism.

The problem this politician has is that non-blacks own businesses in black neighborhoods.

Her solution is to enable her constituents to kill them off.

originally posted by: pavil
a reply to: iTruthSeeker

Hmmmm

She wants to put some controls on these small stores that she says sell booze, very little food and are the source of trouble in her district

So it's the store selling things thats the problem...not the clientele. Got it.

The Bulletproof glass causes the violence. Without it, you'll have less crime.

I think the logic behind this is that if you need bulletproof glass to conduct your business, then probably you shouldn't be in that business in the first place.

Most businesses don't need bulletproof glass, so why does yours?

That's the general idea.

What kind of attention does your business attract, that makes it necessary for you to install bulletproof glass?

Etc...

We don't want neighborhoods that have bulletproof glass everywhere. If there are people who cause problems, that make it expedient to have bulletproof glass, we'd like to just lock them up instead. Take them off the streets. Laws are there to make neighborhoods safe, and bulletproof glass says cops are not doing their jobs.

a reply to: AMPTAH

It depends where your business is. Some areas are worse than others. Businesses have every right to set up shop where ever they decide to. By that logic you shouldn't have any businesses at all in poor areas, which is kind of silly and will only make the rich people even more upset because all those customers will start going to different businesses in better areas and then those better area businesses will put up bullet proof glass and complete the cycle of hypocrisy.

You can't just take people off the streets. Way easier said than done. You have to have proof that they committed a crime first. Bad areas are bad areas, bullet proof glass is justified if there is a high crime rate in the area. You don't just run the business out of town and think the crimes will go away. Politicians are idiots. This is purely race motivated. Businesses are there to make money, as long as they continue to do so, they shouldn't be bothered about their security measures, after all they are making tax revenue for the city.

Instead of this stupidity, maybe they could try to improve those areas with stricter law enforcement and higher standards for loitering. Taking away bullet proof glass to run them out of town is pointless and puts people's lives / businesses at risk all because of racist morons in political positions of power who only cater to the rich.

This is about neighborhoods that have 8 liquor stores, a check cashing place, a pawn shop that buys gold and silver, and nothing else. So they are trying to clean up the neighborhood by removing all the liquor stores. One way to do it, is to make it so dangerous that the liquor stores have to leave. IT IS A DUMB IDEA. But that is what is happening.

It has nothing to do with a black council woman being racist against Asians and wanting the Asian business owners out of a black neighborhood or about plexi glass being racist lol.

a reply to: iTruthSeeker
Wow just when you thought stupid couldn't drop to new lows.

www.google.com...

Sounds like these 'stop and go' stores are finding loop holes in current regulations in order to classify them selves as "restaurants" in order to gain liquer licenses in order to sell open, by the class, liquer. It sounds like these proposed regulations (which only include removing the glass, but go further than that) are ment to close those loop holes and force the establishment to act more like the establishments their licenses say they are.

Sounds reasonable to me. Put more of the shop owners skin in the game. If they want to fuel the neighborhoods loitering of drunks problem they will now have to live with the problems they help contribute too. If they don't want to remove the glass because they don't feel safe, they can go back to being a traditional corner daily and just sell snack goods and for go selling shots of whisky to the people they don't feel safe around.