3 Yard Sales A Year Is The Limit and No Exceptions!

[wkmac]

A woman fighting a terminal form of bone cancer is trying to raise money to help pay bills with a few weekend garage sales, but the city of Salem says she’s breaking the law and is shutting her down.
Jan Cline had no idea, but the city of Salem has a clear law that states a person can only have three yard sales a year.
Cline has been selling her stuff in the backyard for a few weekends and said she thought she’d be fine by keeping the sale out of everyone’s way.
“It’s a struggle,” Cline says. “It’s a struggle for me because I’m very independent, used to taking care of myself.”
She’s run businesses and supported herself for years but this summer she was diagnosed with bone cancer.

We Can't Have People Exercising Freedom, Even Economic Freedom on Their Own Property And In A Down Economy Too!

Good thing we have the state to protect us. It scares me to think of the horrible world in which we would live if they weren't there to get in the way of our own foolishness! The idea of this woman thinking she can engage in economic activity outside the planned confines and construct of state planning. Even worse is using an illness as an excuse to play on our sympathies. How dare her!

Doesn't she understand all of this is for her own good?

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

I think the bigger crime here is the leopard skin blouse.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse and if you make an exception for one you may as well make it for all.

She could accomplish the same goal by opening up an e-bay yard sale.

 

[wkmac]

I think the bigger crime here is the leopard skin blouse.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse and if you make an exception for one you may as well make it for all.

She could accomplish the same goal by opening up an e-bay yard sale.

We can't have people get the idea that in owning property they have some right to actually use it to their benefit can we? I mean, people who have no job, who can't find one and face the prospect of losing their home might get some bright idea and decide to start a home business and it could become successful. What if other people in similar shape saw that work and they had ideas and began some form of home business too? What if all this economic activity began to catch on, people started doing business between each other and OMG jobs were even created as a result? We can't have that, this is the State's job to plan all of this, where it will take place and under whose control it must happen! My God, this lady could threaten Walmart's bottomline and we can't have that now can we? And besides, my interest in my property supercedes her's everytime and I'll use a 3rd party to enforce my interest and I'll even force that lady to pay taxes so I can enforce my will upon her!

Sounds like the lady's cancer is terminal, she could have said what the hell, thrown herself on the state dole and be done with it. Here she is trying to carry her own way as far as she can and in comes the state to chop her legs out from under her and we seem to have a cheerleader to help. Although I knew when I posted this thread that was going to happen.

I wonder how much a computer and internet service would cost a lady reduced to yard sales to try and meet her medical expenses would cost in order to have that ebay account? How dare she think she has the right to sell her own property at the lowest possible operating cost!

I guess we'll have some self righteous flag waver step in and tell us "the law is the law!"

OH Hey Dave! Done any mental heavy lifting lately? What's the movie of the day?

 

[moreluck]

She can have 3 sales....then I would hit up the local churches.........ask to use a small portion of their lots for 3 sales each. Churches are suppose to be all about helping people.
She has 3 choices.......break the law, obey the law or get around the law somehow.

 

[menotyou]

This is a tough one because I have a neighbor who has a year-round 'yard sale'. He has been kicked off the dole foe fraud. He is more than capable of working, just doesn't want to. So, when he takes his trash to the town dump, he brings home things to sell. Oh, yeah! I would never report the lady with the cancer. That takes a special kind of ass.

 

[moreluck]

This is a tough one because I have a neighbor who has a year-round 'yard sale'. He has been kicked off the dole foe fraud. He is more than capable of working, just doesn't want to. So, when he takes his trash to the town dump, he brings home things to sell. Oh, yeah! I would never report the lady with the cancer. That takes a special kind of ass.

That "special kind of ass" is MY neighbor(used the term loosely).
In the end you have to follow the rules or get them changed.....just something official. That's the way CC&R's work.

 

[Babagounj]

How many political fund raisers are allowed in her community ?
If there is no restrictions than have her rename her yard sales.

 

[soberups]

We Can't Have People Exercising Freedom, Even Economic Freedom on Their Own Property And In A Down Economy Too!

Good thing we have the state to protect us. It scares me to think of the horrible world in which we would live if they weren't there to get in the way of our own foolishness! The idea of this woman thinking she can engage in economic activity outside the planned confines and construct of state planning. Even worse is using an illness as an excuse to play on our sympathies. How dare her!

Doesn't she understand all of this is for her own good?

I sympathize with the woman but this is not an issue of "economic freedom" it is an issue of local urban zoning.

At what point does an "occasional" yard sale become a permanent outdoor flea market in a residential neighborhood? I am all for private property rights, but by the same token should that give my neighbor the right to open up a 24 hr. strip club on "his" property in a residential neighborhood that lacks the parking and street infrastructure to support such a business?

The solution in this case would be for the City Council to amend the law to allow more frequent yard sales, or to grant this woman some sort of temporary waiver.

 

[trplnkl]

There are lots of things we don't know about this story. I feel bad for the woman and as said above, would never report her. Could be the neighbor that reported her didn't know why she was having the sales, could be the neighbor did know but didn't care, IDK.

It is a fact that with out zoning laws everyone could have as many yards sales they want, a strip joint, junk car covering the front yard sidewalk to front door. Not many people want to live next door to those, I know I do not. Not only are those things unattractive and sometimes dangerous to the health of people in the neighborhood but it also destroys the average home value. Mac, you may be OK with the downside of no regulations, but you are in the minority.

 

[CaliforniaPaul]

The woman has about $1000 worth of "EzUp" canopies just to sell her belongings? She must be restocking from outside the home. JMO

 

[wkmac]

I thought about a strip club opening in a residential neighborhood and although possible I looked at my own neighbors to consider the odds and came away feeling very assured that even in the wildest of freed markets, no such enterprise would ever be started by any of my neighbors. For those who assert such ideas as possible, one need to question just where it is these people have choose to live?

You could open a strip club in a residential neighborhood but the limitations on any real growth and longevity are very limiting. An average 3 bedroom, 2 bath house would need modifications to allow a large space and stage to exist. The kitchen could be the bar but again some mods would be required so the initial capital costs just to make a residential home work could add up. As to parking, so many cars will fit the average yard and then we're out on the street. At some point the customer is faced with parking some distance away if the joint gets crowded and then a convenience issue comes into play. As a customer, why go into a neighborhood strip club parking blocks away when I can go to a club in a commercial district with large parking lot and convenient access? But the bigger question is why would you want to open a club in a residential area with so many factors competing against you when going out to a more traffic commercial area would better suit your business longterm? Could some of the very zoning laws and license laws act as entry barriers and drive up starting costs be one culprit? If I had a long established strip bar enterprise and I wanted to limit future competition, would I find it of benefit to promote zoning and other licensing laws by the state because I'm already grandfathered into the game? Could restricting free market activity thus promote a gray or even black market activity in residential areas where both logistics and infrastructure don't support a business long term much less growing?

So often, crass commercialism is blamed on some idea that a unfettered free market exists and yet more often than not the very opposite is true. Case in point is NY's Time Square.

About a year ago, the Wall Street Journal‘s Metropolis blog ran an item by Aaron Rutkoff on zoning and advertising in Times Square, called “Good Taste in Times Square? It’s Illegal.” As it turns out, the bright lights and “colorful corporate orgy” of Times Square advertising — as paradigmatic a symbol of American capitalism as you could hope for — is the result, not of unfettered free-market commercialism, but of a detailed set of mandates handed down in New York City’s special zoning ordinance for the “Special Midtown District:”

For those with the stomach to navigate the bureaucratic language, the zoning regulations make for interesting reading. What appears totally haphazard to the untrained tourist’s eye is actually planned down to the last square foot, with copious rules about how much of any surface must be covered in signage.
Own a building on Broadway but detest the flashing lights? Too bad. As the code states:

There shall be a minimum of one #illuminated sign# with a #surface area# of not less than 1,000 square feet for each 50 linear feet, or part thereof, of #street# frontage.
​

There are instructions for precisely which direction Times Square’s signage must face and extraordinarily detailed diagrams for how the brightness of mandatory illuminated displays shall be measured.
Does your building feature a blinking sign? The rules require that the unlit phase not exceed three seconds. When can the bright lights be switched off? No earlier than 1:00 a.m.

–Adam Rutkoff, “Good Taste in Times Square? It’s Illegal,”
Wall Street Journal Metropolis blog, 12 August 2010​

The WSJ decided to sum up their findings by saying:

In a way, the zoning code governing the signs is wonderfully ironic. The bright lights of Times Square, one of the most visible and iconic testaments to the city’s hyper-capitalist verve, are maintained not by Adam Smith’s invisible hand but by little-known government regulations.​

–Adam Rutkoff, “Good Taste in Times Square? It’s Illegal,”
Wall Street Journal Metropolis blog, 12 August 2010​

​

Libertarian AntiCapitalism

 

[toonertoo]

I love the leopard shirt.
I love her tenacity. I love her demeanor, I love the way she is still taking care of her outside, when her inside is being eaten apart. Strong woman there.
I would not report her, I would help her.
sounds like her neighbors suck, if they didnt, they would haul the stuff from one house to another every three weeks.
What she should do is just quit, and go on the government dole. Then no one would complain, and if they did they would be hating on the poor, uncompassionate, walk a mile in her shoes, and we cant have that.
IMO it is just another case of hating on the fairly well off. So what she has cancer, looks like she has done pretty well in life, so she probaly deserves it.

 

[trplnkl]

I thought about a strip club opening in a residential neighborhood and although possible I looked at my own neighbors to consider the odds and came away feeling very assured that even in the wildest of freed markets, no such enterprise would ever be started by any of my neighbors. For those who assert such ideas as possible, one need to question just where it is these people have choose to live?

You could open a strip club in a residential neighborhood but the limitations on any real growth and longevity are very limiting. An average 3 bedroom, 2 bath house would need modifications to allow a large space and stage to exist. The kitchen could be the bar but again some mods would be required so the initial capital costs just to make a residential home work could add up. As to parking, so many cars will fit the average yard and then we're out on the street. At some point the customer is faced with parking some distance away if the joint gets crowded and then a convenience issue comes into play. As a customer, why go into a neighborhood strip club parking blocks away when I can go to a club in a commercial district with large parking lot and convenient access? But the bigger question is why would you want to open a club in a residential area with so many factors competing against you when going out to a more traffic commercial area would better suit your business longterm? Could some of the very zoning laws and license laws act as entry barriers and drive up starting costs be one culprit? If I had a long established strip bar enterprise and I wanted to limit future competition, would I find it of benefit to promote zoning and other licensing laws by the state because I'm already grandfathered into the game? Could restricting free market activity thus promote a gray or even black market activity in residential areas where both logistics and infrastructure don't support a business long term much less growing?

So often, crass commercialism is blamed on some idea that a unfettered free market exists and yet more often than not the very opposite is true. Case in point is NY's Time Square.



Libertarian AntiCapitalism

Good financial idea or not, doesn't matter. Would you want a strip club next door to your home? With the help of loans secured through ACORN or similar agency one could buy the two houses on one side of your home, demolish them and put in a barn type building on one and a two or three story parking lot on the other. People might flock in by the hundreds all night long. Then if the club doesn't make it and goes broke, just before the foreclosure, the owner torches the joint for the insurance money and tries to pin it on you because you didn't like living next door to the den of iniquity. You would loose your ass if you sold your place because unless a liquor store want your lot, the price would be much less than you owe.

 

[wkmac]

Good financial idea or not, doesn't matter. Would you want a strip club next door to your home? With the help of loans secured through ACORN or similar agency one could buy the two houses on one side of your home, demolish them and put in a barn type building on one and a two or three story parking lot on the other. People might flock in by the hundreds all night long. Then if the club doesn't make it and goes broke, just before the foreclosure, the owner torches the joint for the insurance money and tries to pin it on you because you didn't like living next door to the den of iniquity. You would loose your ass if you sold your place because unless a liquor store want your lot, the price would be much less than you owe.

The chance of a strip club next or near my home is slim and none and mostly none. I could see many other forms of businesses coming to past near me way before a strip club so your fear based absurdity doth not apply. The fact that you are reaching for such absurd situations discloses your lack of rational arguments on the subject matter. It does however make me question you, the people you chose to live and associate with and where you choose to live since you are so fearful that it will happen in your case!

 

[trplnkl]

The chance of a strip club next or near my home is slim and none and mostly none. I could see many other forms of businesses coming to past near me way before a strip club so your fear based absurdity doth not apply. The fact that you are reaching for such absurd situations discloses your lack of rational arguments on the subject matter. It does however make me question you, the people you chose to live and associate with and where you choose to live since you are so fearful that it will happen in your case!

Are you so intent on ignoring the point that you lean on hint of personal insult? Now I am beginning to worry about you. The point is, without some control measures anything is possible. I was just trying to establish how far you are willing to push the "truly free market" agenda that you continually preach. We don't have even one strip club here anymore because the city zoned out the one that we did have for a while.
Tell me, why is the chance of a strip club in your neighborhood so unlikely save the zoning restrictions?

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Tex, you should feel lucky that k-mart didn't ask whether you had done any "heavy mental lifing lately" and reduced your offerings here to those of a movie reviewer.

This is why I stay out of the deep end of the pool known as Current Events.

Island, it is just a coincidence.

 

[trplnkl]

Tex, you should feel lucky that k-mart didn't ask whether you had done any "heavy mental lifing lately" and reduced your offerings here to those of a movie reviewer.

This is why I stay out of the deep end of the pool known as Current Events.

Island, it is just a coincidence.

yea, I know. But I have lots of time on my hands between "honey-dos.