The weekend in review

By Liam Day
April 27th, 2008

A couple of items caught my attention this weekend and I thought I’d share them with you.

1) From Friday on South Coast Today: New Bedford’s mayor and city council are considering legislation to regulate sidewalk dining. They consider sidewalk dining an effective way to increase foot traffic downtown. Of course, they’re right, which is why some downtown merchants already offer sidewalk dining options. Unwilling to allow small business owners get too far out ahead of them, the city’s leaders now feel the need to regulate the practice - for a small fee, of course. I suppose it falls under the heading: if someone, somewhere is doing something, then it must need to be regulated.

2) From Saturday’s Boston Herald: Casey Ross’ report on the 12% hike in speeding tickets state troopers have so far handed out this year on the Pike. Now, Casey Ross is someone I have come to respect as both a reporter and a writer, but I found this report to be somewhat superfluous. Whatever motives the Pike has for clamping down on speeders, the fact remains that, when they speed, drivers break the law.

I don’t mind when other drivers speed and, if you want to debate raising the speed limit yet again or abolishing it altogether, I am more than willing to have that discussion. But, until then, if you speed, take your citation without complaint, please.