Friday 5 September 2008

Wanted: Community Wardens. Need Not Be Human To Apply…

A family who hung up posters of their missing cat were reduced to tears after a council worker threatened them with an £80 fine for being anti-social.
Oh, yeah, let’s give ‘people’ like this a few more powers, shall we….?
One of their local council's community wardens soon contacted them to say they should remove them or face an on-the-spot fine for anti-social behaviour.

Bus driver Stephen said: 'My wife took the call and was told quite sternly that we were going to be fined. When she got off the phone she was in disbelief and just broke down. There were a lot of tears.

'Although we love the cat we decided that £80 is a lot of money and reluctantly had to go out and take the posters down.

'It's unbelievably petty and it has made us so furious. This person was a real job'sworth. Milly is a member of our family, we're devastated she has disappeared.
Needless to say, the council claims to be in the right, because they are working for ‘the communidee’, ignoring the fact that I doubt they have a mandate from same to take this action:
A spokesman for Canterbury City Council said: 'Strictly speaking it is fly-posting, but of course we are sympathetic to someone who has lost their pet.

'The problem is that left uncontrolled, fly-posting can get out of hand very quickly. Other posters advertising less emotive subjects soon go up and the place begins to look untidy.'
Yes, you read that right – the people who run the council really believe that a child’s poster for his lost pet is not only the same as flyposters for ‘DJ Scum’s Bangin’ Tunez Nite’ and ‘Ali’s Minicabs – Drivers Wanted’ but it will actually attract them….!

I guess now we know why the council employ creatures-in-human-form like this ‘community warden’ – like calls to like…

4 comments:

Old BE said...

I better get my chequebook out then - because just this morning I put up a sign asking one of my fellow residents to stop letting their dog crap all over the stairs in my block. Blogging may be light while I am inside.

patently said...

Hmmm. Surely it's time to get tough not just on lost kitten posters, but on the causes of lost kitten posters?

Surely the fact that the kitten is lost is evidence of neglect? Can we not bring a prosecution for animal cruelty?

And where is the kitten? It must be somewhere .... there's the basis of a flytipping charge for you.

And what did they attach the sign to? Was is damaged in the process? Was it ... sharp intake of breath ... Criminally damaged?

'The problem is that left uncontrolled, fly-posting can get out of hand very quickly.

Exactly. These evil criminals will clearly get bored of mere lost kitten posters and, in search of their illicit kicks, move on to the hard stuff in no time. Soon there'll be adverts claiming that their dog is missing.

Anonymous said...

Patently, you're just the man Canterbury City Council is looking for! You'll go far... ;)

patently said...

Could be fun, actually. I could follow behind the refuse lorries, ticketing the binmen for flytipping every time they dropped a bit of rubbish.