Permit for Kiddie Pool?

WPVI-TV/DT Philadelphia ^ | 8.3.03

[mhking]

EBENSBURG, PA-August 3, 2003 — Cindy Lenz purchased an inflatable vinyl pool for about $50 so her family could cool off. Instead, she's steamed because a government agency says she needs a building permit or she could be fined.

Ben Grush, a building inspector for the Cambria-Somerset Council of Governments, which handles zoning for Ebensburg and other municipalities, said inflatable pools have been creating problems.

"Last year, pools like this started popping up all over the place. Some are 36 inches deep, some less. In most jurisdictions, they would be required to be fenced," Grush said.

The Lenz pool is 18 inches deep. Ebensburg's zoning law says that pools deeper than that must be fenced to protect against children falling in.

Grush said the agency is just doing its job. "If a toddler drowns and we haven't done our jobs, we're in between and get the blame," he said.

The Lenzes said they would appeal.

"Who would think that you would need government permission to buy a $49 inflatable at Wal-Mart and put it in your driveway?" said Edward Lenz, Cindy's husband.

[TheBattman]

In this case, the permit most likely costs more than the kiddie pool....

[TheBattman]

we do the bidding of the government on our own property.

You must be delusional....property ownership in the US went the way of the DoDo bird. We just rent it from the government.

[Rome2000]

And some people wonder why I left PA and moved to TX.

Yeah, some states are still free.

Just think, I can drive and talk on my cell phone with my .45 (no permit required) in the glove compartment, pull up to my house and take a dip in the unfenced in ground pool without having to worry about some low grade moron apparatchik messing with my life.

Some cities and counties banned the use of cell phones in cars, Jeb Bush and the GOP controlled State Government passed a law repealing all local ordinances and prohibiting localities from passing any more.

A lot of people who live in the blue zone have no idea what living in freedom really means, thats why they put up with this crap.

[GovernmentShrinker]

These counties better make sure they have permits for all those ponds and streams they've got lying around. Wouldn't want any toddlers drowning in an unpermitted body of water, now would we?

[FreedomCalls]

Grush said the agency is just doing its job. "If a toddler drowns and we haven't done our jobs, we're in between and get the blame," he said.

Has there ever been a case where a toddler drowned in an unfenced pool and the city was found liable for failing to enact or enforce a building permit on a pool of any sort? I don't think so. Homeowners have been found to be negligent in not fencing a pool -- it's called an "attractive nusiance" under the law. But I can't recall a city ever being found culpable.

[cspackler]

Fireworks are not allowed in the entire police state of New York. Why?? Because, sniff sniff, children have to be protected from their parents by the government because a few of them out of millions have suffered injury.

I like fireworks, but for the life of me cannot figure out why the idiots in my neighborhood think that it's cool to start setting off fireworks every night for at least 3 weeks after July 4th. (They are illegal here.) I got no problem on July 4th, but it gets really old after a while. My daughter is trying to sleep and these morons are blowing up the neighborhood. These are the adults, by the way. It's commical to see them scatter like children when I come marching down the street.

[honeygrl]

How stupid. They should be asking parents to watch their toddlers instead of making people to build a fence around a kiddie pool.

[honeygrl]

If parents would actually watch their children, it wouldn't be an issue. The pool isn't the problem. The parents who don't watch their toddlers are the problem.

[lmr]

Here Here. The Softside pool I have is 35 inches deep. The City maintains that my fence be at least 5 foot high. My fence is 4 feet high. Why should I install a higher fence because my pool is X number of inches deep? Well, F Them. I have posted no trespassing PRIVATE PROPERTY signs at both of my gates and they are locked. If anyone comes in, they do at their own peril. I get enough grief from my insurance company. Because most of the neighbors know I am gun-weilding, Christ-Worshiping White Anglo-Saxon Protestant they know I ain't messin' around with the signs. So does all the riff-raff that comes through. Besides, My Neighbor across the street has a 48 inch pool with the same fence and he seems to be getting by fine even though his is more visible from the street than mine is. Trespass at your own peril!

[Irish Eyes]

Remember"It Takes a Village"

[The Hon. Galahad Threepwood]

Well, I live in the real world, where small children sometimes get out of sight for a few minutes, or chase frisbees or footballs or runaway dogs into neighboring yards, and I can't shrug off dead kids with the mantra, "It's their parents' fault." Deciding who to blame is not my highest priority.

I have no problem in principle with laws which regulate potentially dangerous situations on private property, but keep in mind that I didn't say I supported the fence requirement for wading pools. Not knowing the statistics on wading-pool drownings with and without fences, I take no position on this particular ordinance.

[SouthParkRepublican]

”Well, I live in the real world, where small children sometimes get out of sight for a few minutes, or chase frisbees or footballs or runaway dogs into neighboring yards, and I can't shrug off dead kids with the mantra, "It's their parents' fault." Deciding who to blame is not my highest priority.”

Come on! Kids get killed in cars but you’re willing to drive “knowing” that you might be involved in a accident and a child might die! How are you going to shrug off something like that! For the sake of the convenience in getting back and forth quickly you are willing to risk the lives of “the children”?

Where do you stop? Another poster already pointed out the issue of public lakes, rivers and streams. Should all of these be fenced in? More kids get killed walking out into the street than drowning in swimming pools but no suggestions from you that we fence off all streets?

How we just agree to be responsible parents and not let our kids wander into streets or neighbors yards? I have a pool and a daughter (just turning 9) and she’s made it this far even with the terrible threat of a tempting in-ground pool? How could that have happened? Some other things my daughter has not done to date:

1. Stuck anything into an electrical socket other than a plug

2. Tried to crawl into our oven

3. Taken a spin in the clothes dryer

4. Jump off the roof of the house

5. Kick my dog in the Jimmy

Somehow she made it nine years without doing any of these dangerous things even though there was a time when she didn’t know any better. You want to know what prevented her from doing them? I did.

[AppyPappy]

Well, maybe if you're very lucky, a small child will die on your property someday, and you can have a party and celebrate the death of a trespasser.

There's too many kids anyway. We're just thinning the herd.

[BlueLancer]

"Some other things my daughter has not done to date:
1. Stuck anything into an electrical socket other than a plug
2. Tried to crawl into our oven
3. Taken a spin in the clothes dryer
4. Jump off the roof of the house
5. Kick my dog in the Jimmy"

Well, I did three of the five .. Our oven was too high up the wall for me to climb into and we didn't have a dog when I was young and stupid.

I did the other three (as well as a multitude of other stupid things) and learned from all of them. I also was taught not to enter someone else's yard without going up to their front door first and telling them why I was there.

[LexBaird]

I can drive and talk on my cell phone with my .45 (no permit required) in the glove compartment

Why talk on the cell phone to your .45? Just open the glove box and talk to it directly.

[spodefly]

I can drive and talk on my cell phone with my .45 (no permit required) in the glove compartment

How do you drive from the glove compartment?

[LexBaird]

1. Stuck anything into an electrical socket other than a plug

2. Tried to crawl into our oven

3. Taken a spin in the clothes dryer

4. Jump off the roof of the house

5. Kick my dog in the Jimmy

Hey, I did all of those things as a child, and look how I turned out.

Well, at least I managed to survive. Never wore a bike helmet when I jumped my schwinn off of ramps, either.

[Political Junkie Too]

I guess it depends on the definition of deep.

A pool dug into the ground has depth. Does a raised pool on a flat surface count? If the inflatable pool is 18" deep, isn't it really a pool with a built-in 18" fence?

-PJ

[freeeee]

I went to England once, and stood on the edge of the White Cliffs of Dover. Its a steep drop hundreds of feet down to a certain death if you fall.

There are paths along the cliff, only feet from the edge. Amazingly, there is no fence there, and no one to remind you not to jump off a cliff. Not even a sign. How can this be? Won't some poor child chase a frisbee off the edge?

And I thought about it. Even England, home of the nanny state, isn't as bad as the US when it comes to these things. And here we sit so smugly in the states, gloating in our "freedom" - where never mind a cliff, you can't even have a freaking swimming pool without a fence.

It's really sad when Europe of all places can show us up in (some) matters of personal responsibility, common sense, and freedom.

The US has become a great big kindergarden, and government is the mommy. I don't want to live in a bland, dumbed down childproof world where I have to view life through a chainlink fence "for my own good".

[Constantine XIII]

It's his fault if the kid's parents can't control their kids well enough to keep them from wondering onto someone else's property and drowning in a 18 inch deep inflatable pool?