Off The Publisher’s Desk – 1-22-2020
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It ain’t fittin, it ain’t fittin, it just ain’t fittin!
It ain’t fittin, it just ain’t fittin were the words that actress Hattie McDaniel uttered as Mammy in the movie “Gone With the Wind.” She had these words with Scarlett O’Hara when Scarlett did some things that were not socially acceptable back in the 1860s. Mammy told Scarlett that the dress she wanted to wear was too low in front. “You can’t show you bosom until three o’clock,” Mammy told her, “It just ain’t fittin.”
Those words came into my mind as I sat in at the Boyceville Village board meeting on January 13th as they were acting on the fee for fire inspection. The fee is where the inspector has to return a second time to see that a violation has been corrected.
It’s not a fee, it’s a fine and that brought up some more questions, as to what are the property owner’s rights and where does the fine money go. In this case it goes to the fire department. If we bring in another scenario and move into the local police department or county sheriff’s department about money they generate from writing tickets and their department getting those fine moneys, they would be writing a hundred tickets a week.
I just had to make light of what could be a serious condition and if you don’t follow the fire inspector’s findings your building could have a fire. One of the purposes of the fire inspector is to point out what could possibility be a fire hazard. And, I can’t figure out why anyone would not try to keep their facility from burning. The best fire is one that did not start. We will all be better off if we make the corrections that are pointed out by the fire inspector.
But the fire inspector also brings in another set of rules and regulations, and running a business in a small town is hard enough with out more government regulations. I have a hard time figuring out how mankind made it on this earth for centuries without government rules and regulations and I know we fill books with them.
If we could turn the clock back fifty or even seventy years ago, our small towns had many stores that carried everything that we needed to survive and shopping at home was the way of life. If it was not available in your community, you didn’t need it.
But, what happened to all those local stores that provided you with your daily needs plus they employed local people, paid taxes and supported all types of local events and endeavors.
Now we can’t even buy a pair of socks or underwear in our hometown and must drive fifty or hundred miles to shop. What happened? Well, I could think of a half dozen reasons what happened, and one of those would be government rules and regulations.
Let’s open a lemonade stand out on the corner. First we need a Federal Government ID number, also a state number, and a permit to collect state sales tax. By the way, you have to pay the state to get that permit to collect their tax. You might also have to get a permit from the local unit of government.
Then you will also need an inspection from a state inspector that will allow you to serve ice-cold lemonade. If you hired some help, you will need to first, send the state a letter telling them you have a new employee, you will be required to pay half of that employee’s Social Security and Medicare tax, you will need to buy worker’s comp insurance, and pay state and federal unemployment taxes. The local assessor will need to make a valuation of your property. And, you will probably need another permit to put up a sign “Ice Cold Lemonade.”
And, of course you will need to keep the sidewalk clean of snow and you will have to make sure the grass is mowed and make sure that you don’t let any grass clippings find their way into the street. By now you’re so far in the hole that you can’t sell enough lemonade to put you into the black. Your accountant suggests that you also sell beer, and that is another set of regulations for you to get involved in. So let’s go on unemployment.
It just ain’t fittin.
Thanks for reading! ~Carlton