Underbelly of Culture

The little town I live in went through an expansion a few years ago.  Seems the city council was completely stacked with developers and contractors and they raided the treasury to build all over the place, buildings we never had any need of, but lined their pockets well!  One of the more embarrassing structures is the new city hall and library combination building.  Why embarrassing?

Well it seems that this building, for whatever reason, has become the mecca of drug dealers and users across the last several years!

During the daylight hours, heroin users are shooting up in the bathrooms.  Stoned individuals randomly roam the aisles, singing, dancing, stripping, throwing books, etc.

Then at night, drug dealers take over the streets in front of the building.

What on earth!?!?!?

And while I was with the police on Monday morning, we talked about the problems surrounding this building, just two blocks away!  The officer told me that they have roughly one arrest, every hour on the hour, 24 x 7!  Almost all are for drugs, a small percentage for prostitution!

Yeah, just what my community needs, drug distribution mecca for the area.

But, then perhaps this should not really be a surprise.

You see, about a decade ago, the city council previous to the contractor city council decided that they were so hard up for cash that they would create a bar and tavern culture in the downtown area - and alcohol dealers came out in force!  Several wine companies opened up distribution store fronts, followed by pubs, taverns and everyone then started applying for a liquor license.  Even the local art store has an application pending.

Of course, it then seems reasonable that other failures of man would surface as well, such as drugs and prostitution.  And with the increased crime and auto accident increases late at night, the city budget still can not keep up with what these decisions have cost.

Again we see played out in reality the cost of not thinking through a decision.  It is not as if these factors do not come into play constantly.  But, with an almost pathological belief that failure only occurs because they were the ones not executing the decision, you can see the same progression from greed for more tax income, to a "clean" industry of alcohol, to drugs, to prostitution and the final step is the arrival of organized crime.

Makes you wonder how long it will be before this little town gets its own FBI office because organized crime and gang warfare becomes the state of the state ...