An open letter to Tybee's city council
Although there may be some conjecture and speculation as to the origins
of Ice Cream, one can be sure that its popularization has always led to a
subsequent calamity for the culture that embraces it. King Charles I of
England, whom some attribute as the first patron of this degenerate
delicacy, was said to have initiated a pension for a royal chef named
DeMarco who first created this debauched dessert as his Coup de grace for a
royal banquet. Some years later, in 1649, Charles was beheaded. Some years
after this the English lost the revolutionary War, and a little later the
Beatles broke up. Do you see the connection? Once known as the Empire upon
which the sun did not set, now known as the home of Austin Powers and bad
dental hygiene. Where a once proud people have even lost their native tongue
and are forced to speak American.
And if one seeks to trace it's possible creation even further into
antiquity, one finds the stories of Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar sending
slaves into the mountains to gather ice for the frosty and fruity
confections of which he had become especially fond. Need I remind the reader
of the ensuing Conflagration Concerto in E minor played upon that now
infamous fiddle? Rome, once the City to which all roads led reduced, no
doubt, by a crazed Emperor's lust for this sweetly subversive sherbet to
nothing more today than a city where many young women are so impoverished as
to not even afford enough material in their skirts to cover their thighs.
Some cannot even afford razors with which to shave their legs and armpits
(nor the grandmothers' their mustaches) and look at the Coliseum; the place
is practically a ruin!
So, perhaps it was with wisdom the City Fathers chose to not consider
allowing an Ice Cream man to ply his trade on Tybee, seeking instead to save
the populace in their charge from the carnage only Ice Cream can produce.
(Note: If the above seems like sour grapes and disrespectful, I
apologize. But I will be frank. Your ordinance, as it stands, deals only
with restricting street vending for the purpose of maintaining the health,
safety, and morals of the community and specifically restricts activities
which can be defined as harassing or annoying. No where is the restriction
justified in terms seeking to keep the previously established businesses
free of competition in deference to the year round "tougher outers." You are
not the only community with a seasonal dependence upon profits (and indeed
your season is quite a bit longer than many that still allow street vendors
when properly permitted)...and if that is what is really at heart, as I
believe it is, perhaps you need to amend your ordinance to read "For the
purpose of restricting competition we the City Council do hereby . . .
"
I came to you and honestly presented my request, as I am sure many
others have done. As it is, only one of your members was able to look me in
the eye and be honest about the motivation for shelving consideration of
amending your ordinance as though this and previous vendor's requests were
suddenly thrust upon you. By your own admission, this has come up many times
before, and believe me I understand the cleverness of deferring
consideration of allowing the incursion of a warm weather activity till
sometime in the fall, but even then, what do you suppose might be the
council's inclination regarding such vending?
Gregory Tarana
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