www.thegloss.com: A killjoy New York City Councilman trying to put a stop to excessively aggressive Times Square buskers could ruin Halloween for all of us if he actually manages to pass a law banning the wearing of costumes in public. People currently have the right to wear whatever the hell they want in public, even if that involves dressing up like a cartoon character. But in an effort to fight back against costumed menaces like anti-Semitic Elmo and pushy Cookie Monster, Councilman Peter Vallone introduced two bills that would crack down on the city’s costumed menaces.
3 comments:
Proposing a law to ban people from wearing costumes in public, even only specific costumes, seems like an extreme solution to something that hasn't come across as a huge issue. If this law is referring to the pushy people who try to sell you things in NYC while wearing costumes, then there are a heck of a lot more people like that who aren't wearing costumes than those that are wearing costumes. If this law were to pass there would be a lot more to it than preventing those sales people from wearing costumes. Children would not be able to dress up as certain characters for Halloween, or at any other time of the year as children are wont to do. This would also prevent conventions like Comicon from being held in NYC city. Dressing in costume is a huge part of that convention. The same goes for other events and conventions. Would Disney need to acquire permits to put their employees in costume every time they host an event in Times Square? It seems like there are a lot of things that haven't been thought through all the way involved with this law.
I agree with Jess, this is a serious over reaction.
First of all putting a ban on something like this will do absolutely nothing to thwart the people with bad intentions and will only ruin anything for the people who are just trying to have fun or make a living. I hate laws like this that punish absolutely everyone just because a few people took advantage of a situation. It seems to be one of those things we just cannot get away from in our human culture, whether its our recess privileges on the playground as kindergardeners or our privacy privileges as Americans.
Also there are quite a few more serious crimes that happen in new york all the time that no one is coming up with laws to fix, so why this?
There is a difference between helping a place become safer and just being obnoxious. I feel like this is on par with asking boston to ban marathons to prevent anymore of them from falling under attack. Just not a logical solution to the problem.
I actually checked to make sure this article wasn't an April fool's joke. I can't believe that this councilman has nothing to do with his councilmanship other than committing to forbidding the people of New York from wearing Elmo costumes in the street. Furthermore, is this a rampant enough problem to even consider addressing it ? Are there rogue Spider-men roaming the streets? Will our children not be safe until all of the fake Richard masks are taken off the streets? WHEN WILL IT END?!
Post a Comment