It was a pretty good night for the cause. Last night the mayor and council abolished the age restriction for renters of renovated back houses, something I’ve always thought was a violation of our property rights. This move will lessen the government’s interference in property owners’ natural desire to fix up and get maximum enjoyment from their real estate investments. It should help the appearance of some neighborhoods but even if it didn’t it would still be the right thing to do. And I don’t expect there to be many problems with rowdy tenants, but even if there were a few, it would still be the right thing to do. The government has no business telling one person how old he has to be in order to live in the house of another person. The great majority of us, young and old, live quietly and peacefully and the actions of a few should not result in having restrictions placed on where we may live.
Even better news, at least for me, was the announcement that the administration had the good judgement to reject the introduction of red light cameras to Belmar. As you all know this has been sort of a pet issue of mine and it was gratifying to hear the mayor note that the research I did contributed to the decision to drop the idea. I’m sure they also understood that I would be there to make a big deal over anything that went wrong had they gone through with installing the cameras, and that I was also was looking into a ballot initiative to ban their use here. I’m not looking to take all the credit for this wonderful news, but I did mention over dinner last night that I wanted my epitaph to read “He Stopped The Red Light Cameras”.
Of course the news can’t be all good. The policy of segregating beach-going smokers and keeping them in gulags, far from the ocean, and far from their friends and families, has been re-newed. This is, of course, a crime against humanity and future generations will wonder how we could have been so cruel to each other.
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