Australia is rapidly sliding down to England's level in the "Who can be the most oppressively stupid nanny-state" competition:
"Hundreds of Missy Higgins fans were turned away from Belvoir Amphitheatre last night because of a bizarre ban on blankets.
Concert-goers who had queued for up to an hour in the Swan Valley paddock were told to return rugs to their cars - and join the end of the queue again - because picnic blankets were a 'security risk'." (Emphasis mine)
Because you never know when one of those suckers is going to go off, I guess.
Wet asses for all, in the name of "safety".
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3 comments:
Does the state own that venue? If not, how is this a "nanny-state" issue, and not one of property owners' rights to allow or not allow what they see fit?
Discordian,
In both of the posts here that you commented on, the places involved are indeed privately owned, but they are also businesses open to the public. When that's the case, property owners tend to lose certain controls over their property, in return for a license to do business. For example, retailers in Minnesota are free to ban handgun permit holders from carrying in their stores, but they may not ban them from their parking lots, even if the lots are also privately owned. One of the costs of doing business, as it were.
That's the difference here, as I see it.
Thanks for the comments, though, and feel free to do so again.
Oh, and you're absolutely right, people are perfectly free to not patronize those places, as well. I guess my point, especially about Australia, was that the government climate there encourages such buffoonery in their official policies, and those attitudes then trickle down to the regular population.
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