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Vallone Fights "Unsightly" Security Gates

0209shutters.jpg
Photo by Joe Holmes.
The unstoppable Peter Vallone, Jr. is at it again, fighting for a squeaky clean city that's free from both stuntmen and spray paint! With Jeb Corliss safely tucked away in California, his latest target is "unsightly metal shudders," according to NY1. Sure those security gates may protect stores from vandals and thieves, but Vallone contends they also encourage graffiti (which is on the rise in the city). As a solution "he wants to require all new gates sold and installed in the city to be at least 70 percent see through," something he believes would bring graffiti down 80 percent, even though glass is easily marked (though in all likelihood the graffiti writers will just spread the love elsewhere).

Financial crisis be damned, this is the perfect time to force shop owners to spend thousands on new shutters! No? The Bloomberg administration (despite the Mayor calling the shutters a pet peeve of his back in 2001) doesn't want to require the change, and Andrew Schwartz of the Department of Small Business Services says "we believe it imprudent to legally require a business, especially a new business that's already facing large startup costs to purchase a particular brand or type of security gate." Instead, incentives may be offered for those who make the switch. But will these magical new semi-transparent gates really stop well-aimed spray cans?

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Comments [rss]

  • Wza

    Vallone is a douche.

  • ART!

    Word up! He is.

  • Guest

    Better that this hairpiece-wearing turd is wasting his time on this crap than pushing legislation (like Vacancy Decontrol) for his buds in the landlord lobby.

  • Nick S

    Yet another comment-baiting Jen Carlson piece. Her role on the team has become VERY clear.

  • Spirit of 76

    Actually, I thought that was John Del Signore's role.

  • thefacts

    You got that right.

  • IvoryJive

    Streets looks much better when the stores have see-through gates and you can see into them and do some window shopping, as opposed to a street that is a solid desolate wall of continuous bleak security gates. And it looks even worse when those gates are vandalized - neighborhoods get transformed from bustling shopping streets during the day to deserted graffiti-covered corridors at night. See-through gates definitely help, and plus they allow light to come onto the street from the store windows. Someone should have recommended this a long time ago.

  • PTG in nyc

    I would imagine that Vallone is either best friends or relatives with the owner of the metal gate company that stands to benefit from this new law.

  • blablanyc

    Graffiti is on the rise. Drug sales are on the rise. Violent crime is on the rise. Because cops don't give a shit any more. It's time to get your ghetto on.

  • ART!

    Graffiti is on the rise? GOOODDDD!!!!

    Drugs/murder on the rise? No. The city needs to focus on those crimes more. Those crimes harm people. But graffiti does NOT!

  • sj

    How can a guy who doesn't know the difference between a shudder and a shutter have any credibility?

  • Spirit of 76

    You may want to ask Jen Carlson. NY1 didn't write "shudder" and I seriously doubt Vallone did. That, as usual, was a Gothamist malapropism.

  • sj

    Yep, you're right. I saw it in quotes above and so assumed it was a quote from Vallone. Turns out it wasn't, it was a quote from the NY1 story and even then it was changed from correct to incorrect for posting on gothamist, which means it should not be in quotes above because it's not a true quote.



    I guess I have to change "guy" in my original question to "blogger."

  • hanuman

    Again, a tremendous waste of taxpayers money. This is what all our taxes are going to funding? How about we tackle some real issues that plague the city, rather then think up ways to further pass useless regulations on our middle class. Valone = Fail.

  • Atomische

    People who don't like the look of the gates should just stay home when businesses are closed anyway.

  • moike

    As a graffiti writer and someone who knows way too many graffiti writes I can assure you this will not stop graffiti in anyway. Classic Kicks on Elizabeth put up these gates and suffered an absurd amount of glass damage for it.

  • thefacts

    Go back to Portland, scumthroat. Graffiti my building and I'll put a knife in your liver.

  • FelixtheCat & Christine Quinn'

    thefacts who accuses anyone who has compassion for animals as people haters yet threatens to kill someone over graffiti. what a pervert.

  • MFer

    Pervert? I don't think that's the word you were going for. That's a low-hanging word for people with short arms. So your second mission in life is get at thefact? Shouldn't you be worrying about how you unwittingly and mistakenly gave your girlfriend a hint that you were going to propose to her on Valentine's Day? Shudder! Whipped. Felix the Pussy.

  • yetanotherdamneduselessaccount

    Sometimes the only language douchebags respond to is consequence.



    Maybe spraying a whole can of paint into the mouth of a freshly-caught "tagger" would be more humanitarian?

  • Spirit of 76

    That's nothing to brag about, even in an anonymous blog like Gothamist.

  • Spirit of 76

    Try reading it again, Jen. Vallone isn't proposing to force anyone to buy new roll-down gates. His proposal is that any business that's going to put up new gates have to use the grille type rather than the solid slatted type. If you're not replacing or installing new gates, you won't have to pay a cent.

  • Toby von Meistersinger

    Peter Vallone, Jr. you are just proving how useless politicians are.

  • jaycjay

    "unsightly metal shudders"



    Sure, sometimes metal shutters do shudder; for example, in a strong wind. But I don't see how whether they're unsightly or not would have any impact on it.

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