Six Story Limit and the Smoking Ban

[Betsy]

Fayetteville City Council voted in an ordinance Tuesday limiting buildings in the downtown/dickson area to six stories. IMHO, this is silly and stupid. We already have buildings downtown that are taller than six stories, and we're in one of the fastest growing areas in the country. Our downtown area is going to have tall buildings, for crimony's sake. And, the whole thing is pointless. Anyone wanting to build something higher can (and likely will) just get an exemption - like the hotel they're going to build (someday) with the TIF money (where the Mountain Inn used to be) and the (extremely unattractive) hotel Barber wants to build on Dickson that started this whole brouhaha.

In other local news, a lawsuit filed against the city regarding the change in the way the smoking ban is to be enforced has forced city council to hold off on the change until the lawsuit is settled. Four local restaurant owners who spent a lot of money modifying their businesses to accomodate the smoking ban the way it WAS being enforced are suing to be reimbursed for those expenses, as well as complaining that you can't just go around changing things like that midstream. In light of the new statewide smoking ban that limits smoking to only places where you have to be 21 to enter, I think the city should just eradicate its own smoking ban and follow the state law.

Your thoughts on either of these local topics?

[Hogeye]

Both are cases where the city government unilaterally exproprites property without paying takings. Alligator Ray's is relocating to Rogers - it's hard to have an oyster bar without being able to serve oysters.

This progressive (=favoring state power to enforce social goals) trend portends badly for the anti-prohibition movement.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Of course we're going to get buildings over 6 stories - and should. We need to reduce the "footprint" by going up, instead of out. Sprawl increases the cost of infrastructure, and while Fayetteville is growing, it isn't growing its taxbase to the extent of being able to pay for sprawl.

State laws in some situations are better than local ones - otherwise you get the wet county-dry county syndrome. As to smoking in restaurants, the function of restaurant is to sell food, i.e., things to eat on site. Smoking drastically reduces my choices for eating. Non-smoking does not reduce anybody's choices for eating.

[Hogeye]

State laws in some situations are better than local ones - otherwise you get the wet county-dry county syndrome.

I can see how one might think that if the decision was 1) a one-time, once and for all decision that 2) had no effect on future decision-making, and 3) happened to be the 'right' decision. But of course, these don't hold in real life, except for (3) occasionally.

I look at it from a meta-decision-making point of view. Is it better to have a centralized winner-takes-all decision (which may be wrong or right); or is it better to have many decentralized pluralistic 'experiments', generally with some right and some wrong? To me it's a no-brainer - the latter is better. In the pluralist scenerio, I have more confidence that truth will emerge. Furthermore, it makes for more satisfied people and allows those who dissent to opt out and switch/move to something more to their liking. Pluralism also avoids the the war of all against all that winner-take-all decision-making creates. I prefer live and let live to my way or prison.

Smoking drastically reduces my choices for eating.

So, you're willing to use aggression to get your preferrence? How uncivilized! At least private criminals risk their own neck when violating rights. It's so much easier to get the State to do your mugging.