Memo to City Council
Re: Revising the ordinance to allow dogs on restaurant patios
The following information is apparently unknown to you, and I bring it to your attention as a public service as you craft the regulations to override outdated state laws.
1) Patios are outside. Birds, bugs, squirrels, and all manner of God’s creatures already have access. 2) The kind of person who cares enough to bring his dog with him to lunch probably has a dog better groomed than you are. 3) Restaurant owners — having a financial interest that you, as politicians, couldn’t possibly comprehend — care a lot more about the health and well-being of their customers than you do. They actually want them to enjoy eating and come back again. So they can probably handle the responsibility of keeping the patio clean. 4) No restaurateur will be required to let dogs on the patio. Seriously. It’s their choice.
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Like last time around, much of the committee opposition seemed to come from the African-American council members. What’s up with that? Don’t black people like dogs?
I would add only this: 5) most dogs are cleaner and better behaved, perhaps even better educated than at least hald of the coucil, AND at least when a dog greets you the worst thing they do is sniff your butt…not stick their filthy cloven paws in your pocket.
Half not hald, dang this crackberry.
I’m sure Messieurs Levinthal, Salazar, and Caraway and Mrs Jones Hill didn’t intend it, but this article reads like something from The Onion.
Would someone from the SPCA mind taking a drive by Dwaine’s house? Seems like his pets could use some help. Feel free to stop off at any garage sales you find on the way over while you still have the chance.
Chico, I think they are confusing “dogs” with “Dawgs.” Nobody wants a group of rowdy Dawgs at their establishment.
Plus there is a lot of lobbying coming from the cat lobby. Apparently, they are real pussies.
My wife and I have commented time and time again that our three dogs are better behaved in public than a lot of people’s children.
Any way to ban them from patios?
Trey, legislators don’t recognize the concept that individuals can make discretionary decisions about what is or is not in that person’s own best interest. Individuals must be told what to think/do/not think/not do by their betters, otherwise they are just lost little lambs in this mean old world. It’s the Yoda Theory of Governmental Legislation(tm): you either can or you cannot, there is no try. Restauranteurs either cannot or must allow dogs on their outdoor patios; there is no in between.
Hillary and Obama have a different take on this: you must have health insurance whether you want it or not. Freedom! Bah! I, for one, am sure glad that the Dems are here to protect us from the Repubs taking away all our freedom. Have none of these people ever read “Animal Farm”?
I feel sorry for Angela Hunt. She always has to be the one to inject logic in the City Council’s debates.
Mantooth has hit the nail on the head. A business owner can’t simply decide to permit dogs on the patio, nor can that owner decide whether the business should permit smoking (or not).
Whether at the local or national level, legislators (and regulators) suffer from two problems that combine to make them insufferable. First, they feel a need to justify their existence by continuing to create more and more legislation/regulation, whether or not there is any actual need for same. Second, they fully understand that they are “smarter than the average bear” and therefore must help the average (and below average) bears by telling them what they can and cannot do.
Yes, Mantooth, you Republicans are keen advocates for social freedoms. Like the freedom for gay people to get married. The freedom to have our phone calls not be tapped. The freedom to not have to say “one nation under God”, if you happen to not believe in judeo-christianity. The freedom for a 14 year old girl to have an abortion if she’s raped. The freedom to buy a Cuban cigar……..
Undoubtedly Mantooth and perhaps Trey would allow the world to spin as it desires with a loose collection of self-organizing principles. No wonder Trey voted for Ron Paul.
If everyone acted as virtuously as them then all would be fine in this world. And I wish it were so. But it’s not a safe, well-lighted place, this world of ours. Call me Hobbesian but I see man in the state of nature in a darker light. I also see more collectivist need than individualist desire. My love affair with their brand of thinking (personified by Friedrich Hayek and his brand of libertarianism) died a tragic (and necessary) death in my 20’s when I realized that Hayek’s seductive theories were so deaf and utopian not to recognize that spontaneous self-organization is a nightmare and that all forms of collectivism do not lead to tyranny–especially in the U.S.
I beg your pardon! My doggen is a People and believes his place is on the patio with a well made Vesper martini: shaken, not stirred.
How dare anyone say anything to the contrary!!!
Matt- it was your Messiah that banned the Monte Cristo…get married, to an animal if you want, have all the abortions you can (oh…I forgot, you’re a man, nevermind), talk all you want on a pre-paid phone, and no one has ever forced me at gunpoint to say the pledge in any form. Your life isn’t that bad…if you’d blogged that from Cuba or China, chances are it would be your last entry. Weren’t we talking about DOGS? How did we get off on that tangent? Oh, yeah, it’s that pesky free speech thing…
get married to an animal? wow, aren’t you just the walking cliche. any other talk radio quotes you wanna throw out?
ever have a thought for yourself?
so we’re no longer allowed to question authority because “china has it worse”. you’re pathetic. oh yeah, and it was mantooth that decided to throw politics into the mix.
and as far as “i don’t have to do the pledge”…well then why don’t you strip off the “in god we trust” off my money. from what i’ve read, you’re maker doesn’t really like being associated with the root of all evil.
Memo to Trey Garrison:
The following information is apparently unknown to you, and I bring it to your attention as a public service.
“I would point out that it is ILLEGAL for restaurants to have pets on patios. Any restaurants, anywhere in the State of Texas.” said Anglela Hunt.
So, you see, Trey, you’re spouting off without checking the real facts… again.
Because of STATE HEALTH regulations, in order for any restaurant in Dallas to “break” the state law, the City of Dallas must develop specific health standards to maintain cleanliness and food safety.
So, you see Trey, Angela is trying to assist, as is City Council, because they NEVER banned the pets to begin with. The state did — everywhere.
You may start your education here:
http://backtalklakehighlands.typepad.com/back_talk/2008/02/restaurant-pati.html#comment-104362628
Matt- just to be clear…it is the LOVE of money that is root of all evil, not the money itself. I don’t listen to talk radio. But thanks for playing.
It’s funny that Matt is calling someone else a “walking cliche,” while hitting on every stereotypical “anti-establishment” argument there is.
Get a life you stupid hippie.
I heart stupid hippies. They complain about U.S. policy toward Cuba, civil unions, abortions, the pledge, patriot act, a benign phrase on money, and me on cue. Gotta run, I have a partial birth abortion scheduled at 10, and I just got my talking points faxed from W this morning, and a black helicopter is circling my home. Yes, Matt, I do think for myself, and in doing so I don’t want you attempting to do it for me. I am so pathetic.
I should point out that there is a very flamboyant diamond seller who brings his dog into Cafe Pacific in HP Village for lunch and dinner. The dog has his seeing-eye gear on, but it’s pretty obvious the FDS isn’t blind. The pup lays under the table and never makes a move!! Do we need the Dog Police?? What’s next???
Brilliant point, Amanda. So long as we enjoy more civil rights than the Chinese, we’d best just clam up and take our lumps. No need for vigilance … so long as Republicans are in charge, that is.
I agree with Mantooth on the issue at hand, but he repeatedly insists on linking local issues to national ones. He, not Matt, misdirected the discourse. Hillary and Obama have nothing to do with dogs on restaurant porches, and the link to national healthcare is tenuous at a very generous best.
Another excellent point you make: It is in fact glaringly obvious to anyone not on the loony left that if we were to legalize gay marriage, within weeks men will bugger penguins in the parking lot of Penneys. It’s virtually the same thing; homosexuality and bestiality have been practically identical ever since the hippies invented both way back when. So trenchant, you!
I guess I’m not hearing the *real* debate on the “dogs on patios” issue.
I thought that since the State has basically banned “dogs on patios”, and since the City ok’d “dogs on patios”, then the City’s ordinance oking “dogs on patios” is illegal. And so the City Council needs to figure out a way to make it ok for “dogs on patios”. And so, my question then is, how does the council provide for a middle-ground on the issue. Wouldn’t “dogs on patios” either have to be baned or have to be strenuously regulated by the City? I don’t see another option here, save for changing the State law.