March 29, 2007
City Council To Improve Citizens' Lives Again
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- The smoking ban, banning smoking in all bars, except the ones that applied for a waiver, yet banning smoking at all outdoor cafes.
- The trans fat ban, giving the city's restaurants a year or so to stop cooking with trans fats.
- The ban on blunt-style cigars and any other object that could be conceivably construed as marijuana paraphernalia. (This one was thrown out by the courts earlier this month.)
- And, finally, a law helping old ladies cross the street
Can you think of anything else? Not me. (Council overrode the mayor's veto last week, but it was about pensions.)
Well, there's a hot new law coming out of City Council, and you're gonna love this one.
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Yes, Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown will introduce a bill requiring, essentially, licensing of tour guides in Philadelphia. (So no more of that underground, edgy tour guiding.)
Reynolds Brown wants to end the tradition of tour guides telling people Ben Franklin is on top of City Hall, Thomas Jefferson invented the light bulb and William Penn played defensive back for the Eagles in the 1950s.
To get licensed as a tour guide, workers would have to pass an annual history test, but then would be given some sort of button or sticker they'd be forced to wear so visitors would know this person had passed a simple civil service-esque test. Also, if you pass the test a few years in a row, you can wear all your buttons, in addition to buttons you brought from home. There will be a 12-piece minimum of pieces of flair for all tour guides starting next year.
The TGI Fridaysization of Philadelphia continues.
City Tour Guides May Soon Have To Take History Tests [KYW 1060]
Posted by D-Mac on March 29, 2007 10:16 AM
Posted to Blondell Reynolds Brown
, City Council
, Flair
, TGI Friday's
, Tourism
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Comments
What they need is a minimum IQ requirement for city council members. I'm guessing that a minimum IQ of 90 may be setting the bar a bit too high for the city, but it would have to be a huge improvement over what you've got now.
Posted by: AC at March 29, 2007 04:00 PM
Aren't Philadelphian's embarrassed that visitors are grossly misinformed about Philadelphia?
Moreover, aren't you embarrassed that a Philadelphia newspaper is so jaded and out-of-touch that it can't identify good legislation if the leigislation jumped up and bit it in the nutsack?
Btw, clean up the f'ing city. I am tired of seeing the trash blowing around. G'damn pigs.
Posted by: Filthadelphia at March 29, 2007 05:58 PM
*Philadelphians (no apostrophe)
Posted by: Filthadelphia at March 29, 2007 06:00 PM
To: "Filthadelphia", why don't YOU help pick up the trash instead of complaining about it? Just a typical do nothing whiner who won't lift a finger. Take a look at all of the Friends groups which take care of the park system.
Why don't you volunteer to actualy help, instead of complaining about what YOU do not do. You, my friend, are part of the problem, not the solution. Until you get off your fat arse, put down the fork and help out, your comments are as useless as you are.
Have a nice day!
Posted by: Jake at March 29, 2007 06:10 PM
This is ridiculous. Who paid Council to pass this?
Posted by: Ben Lukoff at March 29, 2007 08:16 PM
Great, just great, city council is full of latter-day Nero clones, fiddling while the city burns; http://www.libertyguys.org/home/detail.asp?ArtID=1518
This is the most seriously clueless bunch of politicians in the world. They deserve our contempt. But city council cannot ensure the quality of anything, for they lack a rational basis upon which to calculate, whether it's police services, schools, or tour guides. Only the market will put bad tour guides out of business, not city council.
Posted by: Vince D at March 29, 2007 11:06 PM
My friend living in St. Augustine, FL, needed to pass a test pertaining to the history of the area in order to get approved to drive a horse carriage (essentially a tour guide with transportation). I don't think there's anything wrong with the proposed plan, other than the test being annual. If you pass it once, you had better learn enough history on the job to pass it again!
Posted by: Dan at March 30, 2007 01:28 AM
My question is, why only bars??? Come on, you went that far, you can ban smoking in resteraunts too. I live in Maine, and we've had smoking banned in all public places for years now. I love it. I can go into any resteraunt I want without having to worry about having to leave because of the smoke. I just recently took a trip to Baltimore and Philly. Eating out is such an ordeal in these states.
Posted by: Maine-ieac at March 30, 2007 05:56 AM
I just recently took a trip to Baltimore and Philly. Eating out is such an ordeal in these states.
The city council would be best to ban idiots from Maine. That way we don't have to have dorks like you trying to tell us how to live our lives.
Posted by: Tom at April 1, 2007 08:48 AM
Hi! im a law school student in Mexico city and im doing some research on tour guides regulation in the US. I wanted to know if someone can help me telling where to start looking for the information because i dont really quite understand how this subject is regulated in the US. I would really appreciate your help!
thanks so much
alicia
Posted by: alicia v at November 9, 2007 01:31 PM
Who's up for starting an unlicensed tour company with me? I bet we can make the big bucks.
Posted by: dmac at March 29, 2007 11:59 AM