- If I remodel the hotel TOO extensively, I will have to comply with the
Federal ADA laws -- something we are grandfathered under, because the hotel
is 26 years old. This would mean going out of business.
- If I paint stripes in my four parking lots, I must put "x" number of
handicapped parking spots right up near the doors, rather than allowing my
arriving guests the convenient spots for loading/unloading. Therefore, I
don't paint stripes in my lots.

I don't disagree at all with these laws (except I think x is too high in
most places I've seen).

- If I were to add a new parking lot, I would have to comply with new laws
that stipulate that I plant "x" number for trees for every paved parking
spot. So I get by with my current parking lots.

I very much support this law. There's too much pavement already. Even
in places where there's a lot of land, it's too late too quickly. BTDT

- If I were to change the signage out front of the hotel too dramatically
(say, by adding an airplane to the sign?), it would come under more recent
regulations that prohibit a 3-story sign in front of a business. So, I
make-do with my 20-year-old sign.

This is also a good law. As a person who has to look at those three
story signs, I'd much rather look at three story trees, or sky. Of
course it's "different" when it's =your= business, but like the
internet, there are two hunrded million people out there, and every one
of them has a special message, just for you.

- City ordinance prohibited us from putting a "Grand Opening" sign out front
of the hotel when we bought the place 3 years ago. That's right -- the
local bureaucrats have wound their tendrils so tightly around the throats of
businesspeople that even something as innocent as a "Grand Opening" sign is
forbidden by law.

Maybe they were bitten by the oriental rug dealers, who have a Grand
Opening every week. Were that the case, I'd support that law too.

I've been to places that do not have such onerous regulations. The
result is that electrical connections are made by twisting wires
together and letting them hang loosely. Bottled water is made in the
street by filling an old bottle with a hose, and sealing it with a tape
machine. The neighbor can build a six story luxury apartment building
right up to the property line and the street, next to your one story
house, and the other neighbor can live in a shack with open garbage
pits. The street is filled with cars with boom boxes that would power
Milwaukee for a week just from the friction of the air molecules.

There are plusses and minuses on both sides, but just because =you= have
a business you want to promote or alter doesn't mean that the rest of
the world should have to put up with the side effects.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
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