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Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

minnesotareformer.com

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Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#111

Post by unethical_ban »

Filligree wrote: post #94
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you're basically describing hiring a bouncer. I've never heard of a bouncer being required, but that does make sense if otherwise they're calling the police all the time.

It makes sense even if they don't. Places like that have externalities, and they shouldn't be offloading their rowdiness onto people who live next door.

I think the idea that the enforcers of law (the ones that show up in guns and armor) can compel people to hire them for security work is a very, very conflicted interest. Very mafia-like.

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#113

Post by monocasa »

codingdave wrote: post #72
brightball wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not prosecuted, it's defacto legal. What we really need in this country is a way to prosecute which bypasses the DA since this type of thing seems to be becoming more common.

There is a way - file a civil suit. That won't have the possibility of sending people to jail, but does have the possibility of financial damages being awarded that are higher than you'd see in a criminal case.

Which is what qualified immunity stands in the way of.

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#114

Post by h2odragon »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #97
dd82 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically Marcus Licinus Crassus strategy for money making is still alive, 2000 years later.

What? There's no overlap between Crassus' strategy and the VFD's strategy as described above. The VFD asked you to pay recurring fees just in case your house ever caught fire, and when someone decided that was unlikely, they made it more likely by setting fire to his house. Note that in this strategy, if someone's house catches fire, that's bad for the fire department, and on top of that it looks like they just commi…

I do not know if the VFD would have or did indulge in arson. That was certainly the implication I felt when they were speaking to me. Which was amusing because I'd had to go out and take the dogs off them to let them out of the truck to talk in the first place.

I puzzled and annoyed them by confessing poverty, but offering to volunteer skilled labor. Apparently the firehouse didn't need wiring or network or anything :)

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#115

Post by Eisenstein »

willcipriano wrote: post #77
Eisenstein wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nightclubs often are required to have security beacuse they are a nuisance to the surrounding area How many night clubs are located in non-urban residential areas? The commercial properties near them would be closed because, you know, they operate during the day and night clubs don't. > the taxpayer shouldn't be picking up the tab because you decided to overserve your customers The solution to overserved customers…

You understand that any visible intoxication is overserving a customer right? You could give most people a beer an hour or so and forget about bottle service. Mixed drinks would have to contain less than a shots worth. I'm on board but the nightclubs won't be.

Is it your contention that every establishment serving customers more than a beer an hour should require security on premises?

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#116

Post by bequanna »

montagg wrote: post #101

Vultures picking what away at parts of a corpse they can. You see so many examples of this, just straight parasitical behavior, in at least American society. I don’t think the U.S. is economically where the Soviet Union was when it fell, but it’s rapidly approaching the civic dysfunction and deep corruption. You have to wonder, is this the fall of an empire or something like the corruption of the late 1800s and early…

> just straight parasitical behavior

Federal and State governments are the biggest parasites with their armies of useless Admin workers. Incidentally, big Govt is also the main driver of malaise-causing inflation.

Start to starve them, redirect that labor/capital to useful endeavors and watch productivity and consumer confidence skyrocket.

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#117

Post by _moof »

otikik wrote: post #98
_moof wrote: post #18

Already we've got two top-level comments who think this article is about crime. It isn't. It's about corrupt police shaking down small business owners under threat of losing their business license. ETA: Please give the pedantry a rest. Of course I know police corruption is criminal. That's not what the people talking about "crime" are talking about.

> corrupt police shaking down small business owners under threat of losing their business license I am almost certain that qualifies as "crime".

It is literally a crime, but it's not "crime."

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#118

Post by kshacker »

montagg wrote: post #101

Vultures picking what away at parts of a corpse they can. You see so many examples of this, just straight parasitical behavior, in at least American society. I don’t think the U.S. is economically where the Soviet Union was when it fell, but it’s rapidly approaching the civic dysfunction and deep corruption. You have to wonder, is this the fall of an empire or something like the corruption of the late 1800s and early…

Yes there are so many signs that what we have is a house of cards but like stock markets, even in real life, things can remain crazier way longer than they should.

One one hand the law and order is missing and on the other hand the people that make the laws are so divided. The people who should protect lack credibility on one hand and are demonized on the other hand. On one hand we do want to encourage rehabilitation of people who made mistakes and on the other hand some of those make businesses so hard to run. And when we make mistakes, let's say with liberal policies or the conservative side, there is no course correction since it takes elections and then maybe multiple cycles ... we have completely forgotten thr "apologize, fix the mistake and move on" method of working. We say we don't have monopolies but big business has all but killed individual initiative.

I think our fall, if it ever happens, will be magnificent. If it does not, that will be quite crazy too, at least for the bottom of the pyramid.

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#120

Post by robertlagrant »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #110
lr4444lr wrote: post #73

I'm not here to shill for the police, but in my former city, it was not unusual for certain kinds of businesses which had a history of being the source of rowdy behavior to be required by the community board to take certain measures to prevent that. It didn't mean they had to hire former police, but they had to show preventative measures were taken above and beyond state level licenses requirements if the board, whic…

Yeah, and that's where the crime angle to this comes into play. Are the businesses really the "source of rowdy behavior", or is it actually the people who frequent those particular establishments? And if the latter, shouldn't that be the city's responsibility to deal with those people to make sure they aren't able to continue to repeatedly act in a disruptive manner requiring a police response? Why are they making th…

Bouncers are there to keep your customers safe, so they don't go elsewhere and never come back. You don't need to mandate bars have bouncers. They want bouncers.
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