no ifs ands or BUTTs

11211 progress progress. six clubs and restaurants, some excellent, and some dives, some new and some ten year veterans, are now opened and hopping within one block of my building. my favorite thing about this neighborhood, in fact the reason why i moved here in '95, was the absolute silence at night. decibel-wise, it was like living in the country, with an occasional passing car or idling 18-wheeler. now it's another noisy new york nighttime destination.
i won't complain about the people noise, or the tougher parking situation, or the disappearing views-- those are all natural side effects of the pubescent neighborhood. but two problems in particular can be easily fixed. won't you join me in fighting the proliferation of cigarette butts littering the street and sidewalk outside the nightspots, and the sister scourge of car service taxis honking their horns to alert their fares that they've arrived? won't you?
the drivers need to stretch those legs anyway, so i've tried to suggest to the car services, northside and metroline being the most popular, that their drivers should actually put on the hazard lights, open the door, get out of the car, and go inside to find their fare. health benefits for the driver aside, this would eliminate the honking (usually a quick staccato double honk) that we hear every 5 minutes or so every night of the week for several hours, often until 3am for the fans at the music club zebulon next door who are heading home after the show.
so 1. taxis need to arrive and wait, and either have their dispatcher call the customer to say the taxi is there, or the drivers need to leave the car for a minute to say they've arrived. also, the customers can take the simple step of going outside after they've called the cab to be there and wave the cab before it honks. i encourage the owners of the restaurants to ask their customers to do this for the sake of neighbors.
2. restaurants and clubs need to clean up the cigarette butts at night as part of their closing procedure. have more outside ashtrays, make it clear with signs that the butts need to be put in ashtrays, not on sidewalk or in street. that way our puppy won't swallow the butts on our morning walk, choke or get styrafome induced cancer and die young, and the hundreds and thousands of butts won't flow into the sewers and out into the oceans and choke and give cancer to all the fish.

good law, moving the smokers outside. unforseen ancillary problem of tons of butts on the street. new law/fine/regulation needed to make the restaurants/clubs good neighbors. or, obviate the need for a law/fine/regulation by getting the clubs to put more ashtrays outside and make it clear to customers that they can't throw butts on street and sidewalk.

join me in this most minor of crusades (DAMN! just heard a double honk 927am sunday morning. DAMN THEM! OK i'm calm, i'm calm, quiet ocean quiet ocean, ahhhh) by calling the cab co's and asking them not to honk, and by meeting and greeting your cab after a meal or show before they honk, and maybe even suggesting to the club owners that they add more ashtrays, and yada yada. basically, do what you can however you want to help end these admittedly minor but annoying nevertheless quality of life wreckers in our little corner of brooklyn. or, add a comment with your name and it'll become a petition. with a thousand names i'll bring the list to the six clubs. eh? you like?

"taking on the small battles since...this morning"
respectfully yours,

-krmgn11211