That was my first thought, too.
Posted on 08/30/2010 1:42:49 AM PDT by tlb
SUN CITY, Ariz. — Bill Szentmiklosi ...is on the lookout for that most egregious of all infractions: children.
He peers over fences and ambles into backyards where children are allowed to visit but not live.
Szentmiklosi, 60, a retired police officer has remade himself as the chief of Sun City’s age police.
Szentmiklosi kept a sharp eye for any obvious signs of youth. It could be a stray ball, a misplaced pint-size flip-flop. In sniffing out children he relies on his decades as an officer.
He tells the suspected violator that a neighbor has complained and he asks gentle questions to get to the bottom of things, all the while peering around for signs of youthful activity. His work is helped by a simple reality: children are hard to hide.
The number of age violations in Sun City, a town of more than 40,000 residents outside Phoenix, has been rising, from 33 in 2007 to 121 in 2008 to 331 last year.
Mr. Szentmiklosio knows that despite his patrols Sun City is probably harboring more children that have not yet been detected. The economic crisis is aggravating the problem, he said, forcing families to take desperate measures to cut costs, even if it means surreptitiously moving into Grandma and Grandpa’s retirement bungalow.
If Sun City does not police its population, it could lose its special status and be forced to open the floodgates.
The end result would be the introduction of schools to Sun City, then higher taxes and, finally, an end to the Sun City that has drawn retirees here for the last half-century.
“You can have children visit for 90 days per year. That means if you have 10 grandchildren, each one can visit, but they can only stay nine days each.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Besides, an elderly ex-cop dressed in shorts, sandals and a polo shirt. He better hope they never hire Fashion Police.
Elderly? He moved there at age fifty-six! Younger spouses are allowed. Howmuchyoowannabet he’s got some Asian trophy wife twenty years his junior?
Of course we all know how early cops retire on cushy pensions.
One could make a real Sundance award winner about this situation—about the grim economic situation forcing couples to dump their grandkids on the parents, even move into the basement. Perhaps something from a teen perspective, maybe a little less grim than “Frozen River” or “Winter’s Bone”.
What a bunch of miserable sacks of crap.
For some reason, this makes me think of some of Charles Dickens’ characters.
I don’t want to live like that!
Why? These communities of over 55 were purposefully set up for those who want peace and quiet all or most of the time. It is CLEARLY stated in the community by laws that there is an age restriction and how many days children can visit and/or stay.
There are far more communities which have NO age restrictions whatsoever than there are which have them so really, you have nothing to complain about and surely you can see this is nothing but an attempt, and an obvious one to paint older folks (who btw mostly vote conservative)and white folks (who are the huge majority of people living in these communities) in a negative way. After all what kind of a person doesn’t want children living around them?
On a different level (the one I was really addressing), is it really so horrible to have kids around in the neighborhood? Worst yet, this kiddie kop smacks of the worst HOA busybody you can imagine. He's snooping in people's back yards? Is there no private property rights? Is this an old fogey commune?
If past observation is any guide, more likely with black socks and leather shoes.
Your argument smacks of a commune mentality. Anyone ought to be able to live anywhere they want and no one is allowed to be “different”.
It has ZERO to do with morality, except perhaps as you choose to define it. No one is hurt by having rules such as these communities have. The 90 days per year visitation rights are more then adequate and if that is not enough and you are one of the 1000 or so families in the complex, then sell your place and move to a non age restricted community.
My guess is that were a poll to be taken of 1000 home owners and he question asked was “Are you in favor of dropping the restriction of people other than spouses under the age of 55 living permanently in the community?”, the responses would run against by something over 99.99%. people who moved to these communities did so for a special reason knowing full well what the rules were.
If I lived in a community such as that I would fight tooth and nail to make sure it remained the way I was told it was built to be and for which I paid.
I believe your arguments to be far more true to the conservative values most of us would choose to live by.
Also, the fact that this is in the NYT, should be of some assistance in figuring out the “right” side of the argument.
I...
I...
I...
... Ain’t gonna play Sun City !
Maybe he will find the Grandkids hidden inside secret walls and yearning to play around the single tree they can see through a small window.
It is simply, in my view, a matter of being able do live exactly as you choose as long as it is within the law, without people constantly using their own values as as the guide for how all others must feel think and act.
That is what the left continually does and it is really quite aggravating. It is their arrogance in believing their ideas are better and all who disagree “don’t get it” or are “out of the main stream”, etc.
… is it really so horrible to have kids around in the neighborhood?
It depends on how well mannered the kids are.
Sure. I'm not the one arguing that I should be able to legally exclude certain types of people from my community that I don't like. If you want to live in a community with only certain types of people (*wink* *wink*), and you like having Gladys Kravitz enforcing those rules, then more power to you, brother.
Besides, you are wasting your breath. I'm not arguing with you about the legality of the thing. I understand these people all freely entered into a contract. I just said that the kop was a miserable wretch. But I guess you think you are allowed to have your opinion, but I'm not.
I've worked in Sun City occasionally among those stuccoed tombs. I'd drive around looking for an address and it was like a cheap Hollywood horror flick, no one on the streets, no one in the yards, no dogs barking, no sounds or signs of life except the illegals mowing yards in the heat.
Down right creepy, I tell ya. It was hard to get anyone to answer their door, I think they were afraid it was their grand kids or the undertaker come to call and one was about as welcome as the other.
From experience - this is the most unnatural of all environments. These communes are for obsessive compulsive coupon clippers and control freaks; the landscaping is pristine and manicured to perfection. The facilities indulge all the childhood dreams for leisure, theatrical, athletic (tennis, swimming, golf) & club activities that were abandoned in adulthood to earn money and raise children. Married couples have an advantage in that they share memories and space - but singles should be prepared for a college campus with rules, regulations and hall monitors. The bossy elitists show up on all the committees to enforce the rules they like and flex the ones that shouldn’t apply to them. Dogs must be leashed at all times, but are treated better than grandchildren....they get a special doggie park/playground and splash pool.
You have been warned.
Q: What do they say when they hear an ambulance siren in Sun City?
A: “There’s another golf cart for sale”.
I think I’d rather buy a place on a thousand acres in the middle of the desert. I lived in a mobile home park once, it was full of busybodies inspecting my yard for fallen leaves and writing me nastygrams, while utterly ignoring the woman next door with her constantly blaring stereo.
The farther I am away from any similar infestation of inconsiderate cretins and control-freaks, the better.
creepy old people - I will open a Furr’s just outside of town and post a policy that I serve no one over 55. I know I will go out of business, but not before p!ssing them off.
For some, the ideal retirement is to be surrounded by people with whom you have similar interests, activities and shared memories.
Most retirees adjust well to *controlled communities* if they have great social skills, a sense of humor and adaptive personalities. Many others are ill equipped once they leave familiar surroundings - where they may have lived for 30+ years.
Funny thing - many retirees discover that they miss the structure & routine of a job and find part-time work in grocery stores and thrift shops....
Plan ahead!!!!
So I very much understand why seniors want a place of their own. A place where they can have quiet to sit inside all day if they want and not have to go out and inspect for and pick up the remnants of popsicle paper wrappers and plastic soda cups and candy wrappers strewn about on their lawns. You might think it a little thing, but bending over and cleaning up kid's trash everyday is not always so easy for a senior. Nor is paying to have your automobile painted where some kid's skateboard hit it when it flew up in the air and whizzed by your car.
Seniors who chose to live in a restricted community have spent plenty of years around children; now they just don't want to do that all day, every day, anymore. What is wrong with that?
There are plenty of places that are restricted to just allow single people. There are even vacation trips and cruises specifically for singles. No one complains that they do not allow children. Why pick on the seniors who feel the same?
“He ambles ....”. My ass he ambles. 10 to 1 this joker’s got a golf cart.
It was for older resident's no kids allowed.
Nice place with all the accoutrement's.
The families started moving in with the oldsters and within 2 years it wasn't fit to live in. It was restored several times and now is torn down.
Lots of people do so that's why they moved there.......I like the idea.
this is the child catcher from chitty chitty bang bang.
Sun City is the epitomy of retirement death camp for those waiting to die. It is just slow motion soylent green death rooms.
Are there elderly police awaiting them when they return from the hospital with the baby, giving them 24 hours to get out of Dodge?
Why the hate?
That was my first thought, too.
perhaps it is old people with no children or with children they estranged.
It is the anti-happy police.
sun city = missery town.
No kids = no school taxes...sounds great to me.
****What happens if one of these geriatrics fathers a child with his under-55 wife in this artificial community?****
Interesting question. Bear in mind (no pun intended), these planned communities began in 1960 - just before society went berserk. So the prototype depended on long- married couples with adult children and a few grandchildren. The leisure activities were the attraction for people who had worked hard, saved, owned a saleable home and could live the vacations they had never taken, with golf club membership and other upper class amenities.
The builders had *schemes for dreams* and it worked well. The last few decades’ changes in same-sex, Larry King vs. cougar couplings and late child-birth marriages are going to play havoc with the demographics and the rules.
Sensible opinions are always welcome.
But if the children are born within the community wouldn’t they be given automatic citizenship status?
OK, so .. can we legally and or constitutionally limit someones' right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness if we determine our housing plan to be off limits to children, except for short visits?
I dunno ... never thought of it THAT way ...
Ralph?
Hey, how should I know ... We don't have the flag pole thing worked out yet
Yeah ... and what about queers ... can we ban THEM?
I think you should stay away from that one, knarf ... we'll just don't ask don't tell
etc., etc.
“Baby boomers are a little different than previous generations‚” Watson explains. “They don’t want to move to Arizona or Florida. They want to stay close to their homes‚ their churches‚ their grandkids – the metropolitan areas where they grew up.”
How does that old saying go?? '----as you are now so once was I, As I am now, so you shall be------'
Don't knock those white legs and blue veins. You'll have them, too. We think we'll never get there --- but we do!
We’ve visited my Father in-law at Sun City. I could never live like that. It was a cheap vacation for us since we didn’t have to rent a place. The biggest downer of the week was that someone asked me if i was living there....
They open the pool to visiting family members for a couple hours a day. My 9 yr. old daughter and I were tossing a squishy foam pool toy around and were asked to stop. Mind you - we were the only ones in the pool. I laughed out loud when the pool manager said - “...you can play with the ball, but you can’t throw it.”
We saw quite a few families visiting. You could tell that many of the seniors loved having the kids around, and many sneered at them.
Not a retirement lifestyle I’d ever want.
Yes there is a big problem with age restrictive communities. It’s neo-hermitism.
It removes those who should be passing along the values, the skills and history of a culture into geezerville impounds that none may enter.
It is not healthy for the impoundees, and it can be like Sodom in the utter selfishness that it represents.
These folks are not conservative they are selfish geezer-twerps who have taken taken taken and act like pammpered geezer-brats.
Look at the ‘cop’! *RETIRED* at 56! Now he’s living off the rest of us. And making trouble for everyone.
” I think they were afraid it was their grand kids or the undertaker come to call and one was about as welcome as the other.”
LOL!
Not a place I would want to live...
Nonsense. Your choice is simple. Live outside the community and “pass along your wisdom” or live within the community in what you call peace and quiet.
It’s none of your business if that is what people want. They are older, have paid their dues, are for the most part retired and should be permitted to live EXACTLY as they please without hearing from preachers bemoaning their choice and using some personal beliefs to justify running the lives of others.
You have your choice to live OUTSIDE an age restricted community and others have the same choices to live within an age restricted community.
Stop meddling, it is none of your business and your reasoning is is in the galactically incomprehensible area.
There are many who are in their teens and twenties who have "paid their dues" and there are millions of elderly retirees who have been parasites all their lives. This is the worst of many bad arguments proffered for this ridiculous community.
The fact is that Del Webb communities in Arizona were set up at a time (1960) when all kinds of property restrictions were countenanced (no blacks, no Jews, etc.).
There is nothing American or conservative about banning classes of people from communities.
The only reason why Sun City's restrictions are allowed to exist is because their restrictions are amenable to the anti-child, population-negative agenda of the left.
If Sun City banned homosexuals or Mexicans it would cease to exist. But it bans children instead. No one can sign a contract in America in which they promise to keep disabled people or Swedes off their property and expect it to hold up in court - there is no moral or legal argument to be made for signing such contracts against six year olds.
YES it is an “old fogey commune” - read the article.
Did you not see where these residents all signed on to the fact that children were not allowed to live in this community? Maybe these older folks don’t like to be woken up by kids yelling, or kids running across their lawns or leaving bikes all over the neighborhood.
It IS an old folks place, and people should abide by the rules. Obviously there have been complaints, or this cop would not be “patrolling” as he is.
Well fine then. At age 45, what if I wanted to move into a senior complex, with rules stating I must be 55. Am I being discriminated against? Will you help me get in?
Do you not see the legal absurdity of these age restrictions?
It would be completely illegal for a community to ban residency by people over the age of 55. It would be "discrimination and ageism" and a quick end would be put to any such scheme.
The only legal form of discrimination allowed in the USA is this sort of anti-child contract.
‘——as you are now so once was I, As I am now, so you shall be———’
“Wanderer, passing, stop and see
As you are now so once I was
As I am now so you shall be
Prepare for death and follow me...”
Saw that on a tombstone in Calvary cemetery in Queens, NY a few years back. It can throw a splash of cold water on your day.
I don’t have any pretty parts but I do have the good taste and dignity to cover the worst of them. As well as a bit of mercy for my neighbors.
anchor babies...
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