Having Solved All its Other Problems, Oakland Plans on Fining a Guy $1,200 if He Doesn't Remove the Graffiti on His Property. Bonus: He's 102 and in a Wheelchair.
I can't say that I've had the pleasure to visit Oakland. But from what you hear about it, aside from the crippling poverty, lawlessness, opioid epidemic, rampant homelessness problem, and generally unlivable conditions that make it unfit for human habitation, it's not a bad place. And it's hard to imagine why they're losing all their sports franchises and or why it costs ten times more to rent a one-way moving truck out of the area than into it.
Whatever you think of it, just do not let it be said that the city sometimes referred to as The Bay Area's Butthole isn't concerned with Law & Order. Oakland is a place that intends to maintain the rules of a civilized society. And when ne'er-do-wells try to flout the law, they will be dealt with. Just take this miscreant for example:
Source - A 102-year-old, wheelchair-bound California man was ordered to paint over his vandalized fence with his 70-year-old son or face a hefty fine.
Victor Silva painted over the black and red graffiti on the back fence of the home he has lived in for the past 80 years after the city of Oakland implemented a March 19 deadline, according to KTVU.
[I] Just had a roller and a paintbrush and just painted it,” Silva told the outlet.
If Silva failed to comply with the order, he would face a $1,100 fine — including an additional $1,277 each time he failed a reinspection.
Silva said he had painted over the recurring graffiti himself without issue for years, but it’s become more of a struggle as he gets deeper into his twilight years. …
"I’ll be 103 in two months or so. That slowed it up a little bit, you know,” Silva added. …
Silva’s family pointed out that a utility box only yards away from the fence was covered in graffiti, further infuriating them when their 102-year-old father was threatened with a fine.
“I would hate to think that there [are] other hundred-year-old people that are being harassed like this,” said Silva Jr.
Oh, boo frigging hoo. Cry me a river. If the city just went around ignoring every Sally Sob Sister with some tale of woe to tell, Oakland would cease to be the paradise on Earth we all know and love in a matter of no time. I mean, can you imagine what would happen if the graffiti on Victor Silva's fence went unchecked? It would be a blemish on an otherwise pristine cityscape. It might keep tourists away and harm Oaktown's thriving hospitality industry. Silva might have survived the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, polio, World War II, the civil strife of the 1960s, the 1989 World Series Earthquake and the Tuck Rule. But he's not going to just walk roll away from his responsibilities to his community. The long arm of the law will catch up to him. At a slow, walking pace.
All sarcasm aside, I think we're seeing a pattern here. One where we as a society have just decided to let some people get away with whatever they want, while cracking down on others. Where we've realized there are some that are simply never, ever going to obey the law, so we've thrown up our hands when it comes to them and stop bothering to enforce the laws. Hell, we even come up with euphemisms to make their crimes sound not criminal. Victor Silva's fence doesn't keep getting defaced; it's being tagged. They're not vandals; they're graffiti artists. And they can't be caught with a cheap, well-placed security camera, brought to justice and forced to pay to have it painted over.
But he sure can. Because he's a soft target. A guy who's lived there for 80 years and wants to follow the rules and stay out of trouble. Which makes him a soft target. A sucker who can be bullied and (literally) pushed around. And that utility box? The city owns that. And they're not about to send a work crew over to slap a coat of metal primer on there. That costs money. It's fine just the way it is. And as for Grandpa Silva, I'm sure when he was born in 1921, he never thought he'd live to see 2024. And if he knew that when he was turning 103 that this is how we'd be treating law-abiding citizens like, he wouldn't have wanted to. I weep for my nation.