Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
Boulder considers outdoor couch ban
Ban on using indoor furniture outside doesn't sit well with some
By Owen S. Good, News Staff Writer
There's a new cause in town: sofa rights.
No, really. Boulder City Council will consider an ordinance tonight banning the outdoor use of indoor furniture.
When Martin Acres resident Chris Holloway read about the city's plans Sunday, his first thought was to check the calendar. Yep, April Fools' Day. "You know, couches don't cause fires, people cause fires," he said in reference to riots on University Hill that used sofas as fuel for bonfires. His wife, Sue, laughed.
But the ordinance is a serious proposal.
Holloway and some neighborhood buddies have organized against the idea and call themselves "Rocky Mountain Backside Enthusiasts." They aren't sure just how serious they are about the campaign: On Sunday, they drafted a communique of one-liners, but Monday they were still deciding if they would go to the meeting.
"The women of our block would really like to see this ordinance go through," said Holloway, 39. "A wife of a guy who signed this (communique) said if we do start such a movement, she will oppose it."
Holloway's beat-up, back-porch couch came with the house he and his wife bought 10 years ago. He plays his guitar on it in the early evenings. During the day, his dog chews a bone on it.
The sofa would be illegal under the proposed ordinance.
Indoor furniture would not be allowed outside unless it's on the way to a moving truck or a dump. The University Hill Action Group, noting 80 sofa fires in its neighborhood since 1996, recommended the ordinance at its November meeting.
The proposal "is consistent with the views of those who believe a complete ban is necessary to improve the livability of neighborhoods by removing health and safety risks," city attorney Joseph N. de Raismes wrote. He recommends "serious evaluation" of the proposal and of an attached "nuisance party" ordinance.
Holloway said he understands what the Hill is up against. "We're not trying to belittle that issue," he said. He and his couch potato buddies are all homeowners.
But "we want to make sure that we all have the right to have concealed couches," he said. "You know, covered with an old sheet or Indian blanket."
Contact Owen S. Good at (303) 442-8729 or goodo@RockyMountainNews.com.
Can I be first with the obligatory "All your couches are belong to us">
Can I be first with the obligatory "All your couches are belong to us"
No. It is not permitted. You have no chance to survive make your time.
I thought a more appropriate response would be "You might be a redneck if. . . "
Thirty-five years ago these same people were rioting on The Hill and burning Old Main.
They don't even realize that they've become exactly what they hated!
Boulder considers outdoor couch ban
As long as they don't try to take away my pickup truck, my empty beer cans or my banjo, it's ok by me...
Thirty-five years ago these same people were rioting on The Hill and burning Old Main.
They don't even realize that they've become exactly what they hated!
After 14 years of living in Boulder .. the "Spiritual Supermarket" aka "where the hip meet to trip" ....... I sort of miss it.
The consertive Eastern Shore of Maryland seems rather dull in retrospect.
ooops ..... conservative Eastern Shore of Maryland
Boulder may just be following Biblical principles :-)
"(Woe to them) that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall." Amos 6:4
Wow, even a warning about mad-cow and foot and mouth disease.
Man, don't mess with my porch couch. That dog don't hunt. Next, they'll want my milk crate side tables and the wire spool coffee table. Sheesh. fsf
What about the beer fridge?
Yes, first it'll be the couch, then the overstuffed chair, next thing you know, they'll be coming after the beer fridge. FMCDH
It will be interesting to see what happens when the furniture cops trespass on private property to check for concealed couches on back porches.
Wouldn't be necessary with a good turn-in-your-neighbor law. Pack an illegal sofa ... pack your bags for prison.
What 4th Amendment? The police will testify that the couch was drug on to that porch.
Of course they can't take the beer fridge. That and the plastic jug on top of it are the only thing holding up that end of the porch roof. fsf
. . ."No, really. Boulder City Council will consider an ordinance tonight banning the outdoor use of indoor furniture." . . .
You may choose ONLY ONE possible conclusion:
A. This is just a political ploy to increase taxes to justify expansion of the Boulder City Police Department to include the Boulder City Couch Police, aka BCCP.
B. The city council doesn't have enough REAL ISSUES to deal with.
C. One of the city councilpersons sells outdoor patio furniture, and, business is SLOW.
D. The city council doesn't like the idea of residential neighborhoods competing with public housing for a "Look-A-Like" contest.
E. The Fire Department is already too busy and doesn't need to be bothered with couch fires.
OKAY, if you don't like these conclusions what are YOURS?
"But the ordinance is a serious proposal."
This idea would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.
When couches are outlawed, only outlaws will have couches...
Wouldn't be necessary with a good turn-in-your-neighbor law.
Like lemmings rushing to be first over the cliff, Societal self-destruction is a beautiful thing to behold.
Wow...the couch police are out. Let me pose this question FReepers, what if you had the third seat of your mini-van on the porch? Huh? Is that outdoor or indoor? I mean if you parked the minivan in the garage...its indoor. No garage, but on street parking...then its outdoor. I think Boulder needs to appoint a task force to review this situation.
I lived in Boulder years ago, but they found out I didn't own a bicycle and made me move.
Where is the typical tactic of incrementalism? Shouldn't they start out by limiting the number of cushions on your couch before they move on to a total ban?
"B. The city council doesn't have enough REAL ISSUES to deal with."
No ... Jon Benet(sp) did herself in ... end of case.
The police will testify that the couch was drug on to that porch.
Well, at least now the cops have the right to restrain the corrupt couch owner while the get a warrant. We won't tolerate destruction of covered couch evidence!
BTW, anybody actually read this ordinance? Be interesting to know how broad the definition of indoor couch is.
Next will come restaurants with couch and non-couch sections.
I have an indoor sofa that I removed the cushions and springs from and then installed wooden slats on the seat to make a nice patio sofa. Would this qualified as indoor or outdoor? Would modified sofas be exempt? Is there a size requirement? I don't think this can be done without a government grant and 6-year study.
How does one define "indoor" and "outdoor"? Is a screened porch "indoors"? A gazebo?
Would this ordinance fly in Davenport, Iowa?
The attack on private property continues....
I rarely work, but I did one evening and called to check on my family during my dinner break (I work for a personnel pool. . .I'm a Rent-a-Nurse). Anyway, I called and my husband said in a cheery voice "I got you a couch!"
"What?" I said, knowing we couldn't afford a new couch...
"Yeah!" he said, "I got you a couch! I was just driving along out in the country and someone had set one down off on the side of the road!"
"You got me a couch that was dumped?"
"Well, uh...", he said.
"Where is it?" I asked.
"It's still in the back of the truck..."
"Did you let the kids get on it?"
"No. . ."
"Don't take it out of the truck. Don't let the kids on it. Take it back as soon as I get home!"
Later that evening (around midnight when I got in) my husband took that nasty thing back to the side of the road.
See why I rarely work? (vbg)
Modified sofas bring up an entirely different set of 'issues.' What if it was a sleeper? A sectional (multiple issue there)? Or one of the LaZBoy models with the internal mechanisms? Six years may not be enough time. It also will probably need the think tank abilities of a major university. Probably a 'chair' will have to be appointed. But then that would beg the question of indoor 'chair' or outdoor 'chair.'
My "patio" is the concrete that was left over after pouring the foundation for the house. It's a little rough around the edges. LOL
Perhaps we need to do as statists do, make a minor modification to an object (the couch) and claim it really isn't a couch anymore and hence not in violation of the law.
Use your imagination. Hang chains from the sides of the couch, and presto it isn't a couch anymore, it is a padded porch swing!
Well, personally, I think for a large grant (2 mil), I could create a bi-partisan committe to study the situation. I'm sure we could come up with a resolution everyone could live with in about 5 to 10 years. Meetings will be held annually at my house on the old indoor/outdoor sofa located on the patio (old leftover concrete)near the front deck (but away from the target shooting area(old washing machine.
Damn, we got to find a place for the washin machine next. It'l be nice that Bubba will have move than durn gear box.
I thought Atlanta was the only place that had those problems.
If I remember correctly, the Boulder police department received criticism for their handling of the Jon-Benet Ramsey case?
It's getting more and more embarrassing for me to tell people that I got my degree from CU, Boulder. CU and Boulder strive to be the Stanford and Palo Alto of the Rockies. So trendy.
B. The city council doesn't have enough BRAINS REAL
ISSUES to deal with.
This is the same police department that has no idea how to maintain the integrity of a crime scene. Good to see they are going back to something easy.
Was that you I heard calling Mark Call's show today?
If I remember correctly, the Boulder police department received criticism for their handling of the Jon-Benet Ramsey case?
But they've never let a couch outsmart them.....
They can have my couch when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers...
It's the old money trying to make their town unattractive as a place to live for these new people from California. It's in a spectacularly scenic spot, but, uh, I just ran out of good things to say about Boulder.
They can have my couch when they pry it off my cold, dead butt...
Jeeze, ya mean the Pearl street freaks are worried about how their neighbors act? It is the 'End of Times'...and the beginning of terminal yuppiedom!-)
Register commies, not couches?
They can have my couch when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers...
LOL! Don’t you mean your cold dead butt?
What's the difference between an assault couch and a regular couch?
Capacity?
And what good is an assault couch without a high-capacity magazine?
What's the difference between an assault couch and a regular couch?
An assualt couch is one that has bad springs and is over-stuffed. It tries to swallow it's innocent victims!-)
I've got no room on the porch for a couch. The chest freezer, those busted motorcycles I've been meaning to fix, the lawn mower and those 55 gallon drums I use to haul the trash off are taking up all the room.
Atlanta? Why, that’s an old tradition all throughout our dear South!
I suppose there isn’t enough humidity up in Boulder to disintegrate their outdoor sofas fast enough, so they must have some old ugly ones up there. Down in Louisiana, they are good for only about 5 years, then we have to go stea..... uhhh..... I mean go to the dump and find a new one.
Nothing--it just looks scarier.
#4 I love Foxworthy too as he is funny, but as a former Council Member and Mayor, a little bit of power can jade these little minds a lot.
God, Couches and Guts made America. (maybe not...)
This is the same town that lamented that they didn't have enough homeless people!
The Boulder city council is just as screwed up as the one in Los Angeles. A bunch of leftist busybodies passing one law after to next to limit the rights of citizens who live in the city limits.
Replace the couch on the back porch with a bench seat removed from an old pickup truck. That one setting in the front yard up on milk crates will work just fine.
Ah yes, the ambiance of transmission oil mixed with hay and dog hair.
Perhaps we need to do as statists do, make a minor modification to an object (the couch) and claim it really isn't a couch anymore and hence not in violation of the law.
Use your imagination. Hang chains from the sides of the couch, and presto it isn't a couch anymore, it is a padded porch swing!
This is the same town that lamented that they didn't have enough homeless people!
Homeless Temporary Lodging Facility?
More than likely...Boulder has always been 'looking for it's identity'. Now, it has become a bedroom community for Denver's yuppies that bemoan that they can't use their $45,000 cars to its potential on their commute.
The recurrent theme is lack of realized potential. Those poor, sad, SOB's.
I really loved being in that town in the 70's. Now, I really love bypassing that pretentious piece of cr@p.
If the sofa is cammo covered, how are they going to see it?
Boulder cammo. Flowers.
Boulder cammo. Flowers.
I'm still laughing at Boulder Open Carry.
Down in Louisiana, outdoor furniture dosn't last more than a couple of years. Gee, I can remember when a freezer and a washing machine on the front porch were status symbols. Before electric power, a two cycle powered Maytag proved you had arrived in the modern world.
.....freezer.........
Freezer?! You guys had a freezer?
If it was a live call-in, it wasn't me. But I did talk to a reporter at the Springs show, for use Monday morning of this week. Was that it?
Okay, sounded like you, on this topic.
Good idea, maybe, but enforceable?
We have come this morning to The Hill in search of sofas.
And to make fun of Boulder. Again.
No, no -- taking a jab at Boulder this time really isn't my fault. In the past, I might have gone overboard, ribbing this wacko college town for the dumb, navel-staring things it too often does.
This one, though, they've brought on themselves.
Yet you must love a town, even a little bit, that decides it might need an ordinance banning the outdoor use of indoor furniture. It wants to strip all front porches in the city of -- yes, sofas.
I have been to Boulder numerous times. And I'd not noticed or been made aware of the sofa crisis. No, not until a group -- the University Hill Action Group -- told the city it has documented 80 sofa fires in the neighborhood since 1996.
It wants all indoor furniture banned from outdoors. The city is listening. It held its first hearing on the ordinance last night.
I poke fun only because Boulder every year tries to fool itself into pretending it is not the college town it is.
College kids stay up late. They are loud. They drag inside furniture outdoors. And as long as the university stays, The Hill and its neighborhoods will always be college-student tacky. Get over it.
I will say this in the city's defense: There is a lot of indoor furniture sitting outside on University Hill. And much of it belongs in a dump.
Under the ordinance, though, indoor furniture will be allowed outside only if it's being moved. Or headed for the dump.
I counted in a two-square mile driving tour about three recliners, more than a dozen sofas, two dozen kitchen chairs, an ottoman and a half-dozen love seats.
Almost all were situated on front porches. I have been told even more are in back yards.
"Do you know that very soon you guys could be breaking the law?" Joe Ridley, 28, looked at me strangely. He was sitting on his front lawn with his friends, Hoover, 24, and Marion, 31, neither of whom would reveal their last names.
All three were sitting, soaking up the spring sun, on Ridley's dining room chairs. "Get out!" they all said. I explained the proposed ordinance.
"Well," Ridley finally said, "I could see it if you had the water bed and the sectional on the front lawn. And you know, there are some houses around here with sofas on the porch. They do look trashy. I can see it."
Wait, Hoover says. At her house nearby, she has a sofa and loveseat on her backyard patio. She's not getting rid of it.
"I have no money to buy real outdoor furniture. I got my stuff for free and, besides, it's comfortable. Even if I had money, I'd still have my sofas. It's set up nice."
Enforcing such an ordinance will be a law enforcement nightmare. I counted within a 100-yard radius of 12th Street and College Avenue nine outside sofas. I probably missed some. One was on a third-floor apartment balcony.
"To be honest, I'd agree with the ordinance," says student Jeff Paul, 21. On his front porch sat two sofas. "We have them out here because it's nice now."
Yet he gets it, he says. "Some of the houses around here look nasty, trashy -- the stuff they keep outside. How they're going to enforce it, I don't know. It's going to be a pain."
He wishes it were law now. "We're moving. Tell them they can come and get them anytime."
Bill Johnson's column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Rockybj@aol.com or (303) 892-2763.
OKAY, if you don't like these conclusions what are YOURS?
F. The entire city of Boulder needs to "extricate their craniums from their rectal orifices" and GET A LIFE!
I'm still laughing at Boulder Open Carry.
Ah yes, the requirement that people put "steal me" signs on any container which holds a gun.
I'm tempted to put 'GUN' on one of my horn cases, just for fun... I was at the airport one time, with my tenor in its gig bag, and someone actually asked me if it was a gun. I told him no, something much more dangerous. A saxophone.
Couches come under fire after couches come under fire
I would be happy to volunteer my services (for a fee) to write an engineering white paper for your coalition. First there would be a time and motion study, then we would have to prepare a cost estimate for our services.
If the funds hold out an actual detailed cost estimate will be created and delivered in triplicate.
This couldn't cost more than 1~2 million dollars.
Eaker
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
[
Top
|
Latest Posts
|
Latest Articles
|
Self Search
|
Add Bookmark
|
Post
|
Abuse
|
Help!
]
FreeRepublic , LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794 Forum Version 2.0a Copyright © 1999 Free Republic, LLC |