As star Tim Duncan enters yet another NBA finals, he aims to do what New York City Michael Bloomberg has just done: Earn the ultimate recognition in his field one more time before the end of a storied career. Bloomberg has cemented his legendary status by securing yet another Nanny of the Month award from Reason TV, making him the only three-time “winner” in history. (The mayor also took home a Nanny of the Year award in 2009.)
New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg is a diehard nanny, but he’s certainly got plenty of company among New York’s seemingly bottomless pool of control freaks. Reason.TV’s Nanny of the Month for April comes from Eastchester, New York where a local official wasn’t satisfied with outlawing traditional fast-food joints like McDonald’s and Burger King. He decided to kick it up a notch and shield locals from “fast casual” restaurants like Panera Bread and Chipotle. And to think these newcomers, with their earth tones and organic offerings, thought they could stave off the taste police!
They make it their business to mind your business, and this month America’s busybodies have been working overtime.
Lawmakers are no longer loco for just one brand of energy drink. Illinois State Rep. Luis Arroyo (D-Chicago) has penned a bill that would make it illegal “to sell, offer for sale or deliver” just about any kind of energy drink to anyone under age 18 (Arroyo’s championing another top-tier issue–outlawing lion steaks).
Meanwhile, dog lovers in Oklahoma are sounding off against a plan cooked up by State Sen. Patrick Anderson (R-Enid) to allow cities to ban specific breeds of dogs. But this time the Nanny of the Month comes to us from Shelton, Washington, where city commissioners and townspeople alike have united against a threat of bikini baristas. H/T Reason TV
Maybe in hindsight it was inevitable: Ron Paul has been banned from Washington, DC! (The personalized license plate that bears his name, that is.)
A Freedom of Information Act request from GovernmentAttic.org, has yielded a hilariously infuriating 68-page list of vanity plates banned by Washington, DC’s DMV. In the list you’ll find everything from sexual innuendos (including nearly 2,000 variations of the number “69″) to calls for “LSSGOVT” and, of course, countless references to marijuana, from the obvious (POTHEAD) to the clever (POTOMAC).
But this time the Nanny of the Month comes to us from Watertown, New York, where the city council has banned roommates from residential neighborhoods (which would include everyone from unmarried couples to domestic partners and soldiers sharing a home). H/T Reason TV
Our nation’s nannies, scolds and buttinskies started 2013 with a renewed hunger to mind other people’s business.
One Florida city has banned dog tethering (even on your own property!) and a Texas State Rep. Bill Zedler (R-Arlington) wants to license strippers to dissuade women from going into that line of work. But Reason awards 2013′s first Nanny of the Month booby prize to the northwest nag whose new bill, if passed, would expand the drug war by categorizing cigarettes as a Schedule III controlled substance (along with LSD). You’d need a doctor’s prescription to get your mitts on tobacco products (including cigars), and if you disobey, you could be looking at a fine of $6,250, up to a year in prison, or both.
Reason.TV surveys the Nanny of the Month award winners from 2012, narrowing the field down to select the biggest Nanny of the Year. Who will it be?
Might it be the Arizona pol who’s cracking down on advertisers who photoshop models to make them more attractive? How about that New Jersey crusader who’s itching to bust bikinis? Or the police chief from Massachusetts who refused to let obstacles like the First Amendment deter him from championing an ordinance that fines folks for public profanity?
The Northside school district in San Antonio, Texas, has won November’s Nanny of the Month Award for its decision requiring students to wear electronic tracking devices. The students actually wear radio frequency identification chips (RFID chips, for short) that can be monitored from dozens of electronic readers installed in schools’ ceiling panels to keep tabs on the kiddos during the schoolday.
With school-based tracking going back to at least 2004, the Lone Star State has been something of an RFID trailblazer. In fact, Northside is considering expanding the program to cover all of the district’s 97,000 students.
Reason.TV named two runners-up for the Nanny of the Month Award:
* The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, where administrators may ban booze in dorms — even for students of legal drinking age.
* The city of Chicago, where officials are using GPS devices to track food trucks to make sure they don’t wander within 200 feet of any fixed businesses that sell food, including convenience stores. Violators could face fines of $2,000.
Reason.TV awards its Nanny of the Month booby prize to the city of Los Angeles. Poised on the brink of bankruptcy, battling double-digit unemployment, strangled by a sea of red tape, the Los Angeles City Council nevertheless demonstrated its misplaced priorities by banning the sale of breeder-raised cats and dogs by pet stores. The stores will face hefty fines unless they sell rescued and adopted animals. What will be the next kooky do-good inanity to come out of California?
Reason TV’s Nanny of the Month Award for August goes to Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the US Health and Human Services Department. Sebelius won because her department used Stimulus and Obamacare funds to back campaigns imposing local soda taxes and enacting tougher zoning rules for fast-food restaurants. Besides violating the job-creating intent of the Stimulus program, the department’s Office of Inspector General is now investigating whether these campaigns violated federal anti-lobbying provisions.
Reason TV also named two runners-up for the August Nanny of the Month Award:
Reason.TV reveals its “Nanny of the Month” award-winner for July — the state of New Jersey, where busybodies can now fine dog owners up to $1,000 for failure to use seat belts on their pets. Errant dog owners can also be arrested and jailed for up to six months, with citations issued by either police or SPCA officers. Wonder if you’ll be banished to a doghouse if you also happen to be sexting on your cell phone at the same time.
