August 3, 2006
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Why anyone would want to live in a snobby 'burb as University Park (over in Dallas) beats me. Bunch of of interfering buttinskis tend to run those places, and a dandy display of meddlesomeness is a proposed new city ordinance that would ban basketball hoops from being in the front part of someone's property, such as the driveway.
No kidding. And why, one may ask? Because both permanent and portable basketball hoops aren't "pleasing to the eye," to quote the UP mayor.
Oh, well then....!
Silly me! How could I have overlooked the obvious Immutable Law declaring Appearances Are Everything?
Never mind that some people don't have driveways that extend to the back of the house (it will be permissible to have them way back there); their backyards are grass, and thus unsuitable for b-ball. Balls don't dribble worth a flip on grass, sad to say.
The mayor's response to those families who currently enjoy shooting hoops in the driveway?
"They're going to have to find somewhere else to play basketball."
He's all heart.
Comments (8)
By that logic, they should forbid ugly members of the community from relaxing or gardening or whatever in the front yard. How unsightly!
The idea that you should restrict other people's clean, healthy, unobtrusive activities on their own properties because it's "unsightly" (not dirty, loud, messy, or smelly, but just that basektball hoops don't fit with the decor) is nuts. People who want to live like that should buy 5 acre properties so they don't have to see the neighbors' front yards. Otherwise, live with the fact that people like to do things that don't fit with your decor.
Don't give 'em notions, Jane. =8^o
Trampolines are also verboten in the front, but that's just sense seeing as how a trampoline could be considered an "attractive nuisance" as the legal lingo goes. There's a definite risk of someone coming along and deciding to jump on a readily-available trampoline and very likely hurting himself.
But a basketball hoop? That's dumb.
Is this one of those so-called covenant communities? If so, I think they're stupid, but the people who live there surely know what they're getting themselves into.
No, University Park's been around for ages...it's the town in which SMU is located. This isn't one of those newly built developments with a homeowners' association, which is what I'm assuming a "covenant community" is.
I'm wondering why they think hoops are unsightly. I mean, they aren't lovely, but then, neither are mailboxes. And then, if you want unsightly, how about the way garages dominate most home facades these days? I'd think people would be proud to have a group of kids shooting hoops in the driveway-- good, wholesome, all-American activity, that is.
A note from the grumpy old lady contingent: Nothing is more annoying when one is trying to get to sleep than the constant whap whap whap of a basketball being dribbled on the driveway next door. I don't care if people have basketball hoops on their driveways, but I'd be foursquare in favor of forbidding dribbling after 10 p.m.
That's reasonable, of course....putting a time restriction on noisy outdoor activities (along with swimmimg, trampolines, etc.).
Yep, that's what noise or public nuisance ordinances are actually FOR. And that's fine. But forbidding an activity altogether because a basketball hoop is too ugly for you (my, what fastidious, refined people these are -- I ought to open up a lace-doily and smelling salt franchise in the neighborhood) is just absurd.
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