The Great Outdoor Table Controversy

Yes, dear gate, you read that correctly. Controversy has reared its ugly head in beautiful down town P.A. dividing smoker frome non-smoker, hippie from square, and business owner from business owner. And it's all over a table and two chairs set out on the sidewalk.

Dig, if you will Gate, this scene: On your right you have the very tiney Itty Bitty Buzz. So tiny, so deserving of the name "Itty Bitty" that it is barely eight feet wide. On your left you have a frame shop. Now the IBB put a table and two chairs outside so that there would be a bit more seating and for those who would walk a mile for a Camel whilst sipping their mochas a place to be. Now the owner of the frame shop was objected to the smoking ... so much so that she put up a sign outside reading "No Smoking" which is completely ridic ... but she was trying to work with the IBB manager so that a convenient place for the atble could be found. Then the frame shop owner got kind of irked by the presence of the Hippie Kids who came to drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and occasionally strum a tuneless guitar. Apparently the sight of Hippie Kids, especially Smoking Hippie Kids is Bad For Business and after eight Hippie Kids were seen one morning crammed around the aforementioned Table and Two Chairs (the Hippie Kids also looted the interior of the IBB of what little seating was left), some of the HKs sitting on the sidewalk, the point of no return had been reached.

Enter the wonderful Downtown Association of Beautiful downtown P.A. who received the complaint fromt he frame shop owner and then discovered that the IBB did not have a permit for a Table and Two Chairs to be on the sidewalk. So the offending T &TC were removed.

This inflamed the indignation of the Hippie Kids who were now deprived of not only the T&TC, but a place to hang out, smoke, drink coffee and ... well, you get the idea. Passions aroused, well let's say they got angry, and now the HKs are mad at the IBB because they have knuckled under to the Fascist Iron Heel of the Downtown Association and an equalateral rectangle of a frame shop owner. So now they're boycottng the IBB who, after all, did not have a permit for a T&TC on the sidewalk of Beautiful Downtown P.A.

What a Babylon!