Forrest Wept

Radley Balko | May 12, 2008

Last week, the city of Cleveland was pursuing criminal charges against a bar manager for operating pool tables without a permit.

This week, Washington Post columnist Mark Fisher reports on the heroic Frank Winstead, whose moral crusade has purged Washington D.C. of the threat of an un-permitted ping pong table.

Comments

|5.12.08 @ 2:44PM|#

"It was a beautiful, European-style gathering place, a charming little piece of street culture," Alefantis says. "People loved it."

Which is why it had to be eliminated. My god, somebody could lose an eye!

|5.12.08 @ 2:46PM|#

They should make it illegal to tape people doing things on the street.

Without a permit, anyway.

|5.12.08 @ 2:51PM|#

I don't understand why you are opposed to permitting for pool and ping pong. If you let anyone run such things there would be madness in the streets!

|5.12.08 @ 2:55PM|#

The real threats to your liberties are not at the national level they are at the local level. The fact is that local politics, especially at the neighborhood level, tends to be dominated by the clinically insane. Frank Winstead seems to be in need of some serious medications or perhaps an extended hospitalization. Rahter than getting the help he so obviously needs, he is instead turned himself into a pulbic nusience. He is no different thant the street preachers who argue with lamposts except that he is less entertaining and has the force of the law behind him. But that is typical local politics. The only people who care enough to get involved are the crazies and the odd crook who needs to rip off the government.

|5.12.08 @ 2:56PM|#

But commissioner Karen Perry says that "when the first child got hurt chasing a Ping-Pong ball onto Connecticut Avenue, people would feel differently. Comet was flagrantly violating the public space law."

It's for THE cHilDREn...iT's 4 da CHIldren...IT's for THE children...

non-racial comment|5.12.08 @ 2:56PM|#

WHITE BALLS!

|5.12.08 @ 3:00PM|#

I saw that one to MP. Yeah it is all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Yeah, anyone under the age of 16 is a complete moron who would chase a ping pong ball into oncoming traffic. How is it that people can be that stupid?

Rhywun|5.12.08 @ 3:09PM|#

Permit or not, I have to wonder what his insurance company thought of the matter.

|5.12.08 @ 3:12PM|#

"Permit or not, I have to wonder what his insurance company thought of the matter."

That is between him and his insurance company.

Ska|5.12.08 @ 3:13PM|#

I saw this last week somewhere - you just can't make up stuff like this.

If someone is this risk averse they should have no authority over anything.

Another Old Coot|5.12.08 @ 3:18PM|#

We should all be thankful for the men and women like Frank Winstead that take the time to videotape every square inch of the street in front of them. They are our first line of defense against terrorists and deliquents.

Geotpf|5.12.08 @ 3:48PM|#

John is right. Local planning boards, city councils, etc. are big on the "ban everything" kick. And people (in general, except when it gets silly like in the example here) like them for it.

Rhywun|5.12.08 @ 4:05PM|#

That is between him and his insurance company.

Fine. And *if* someone got hurt, and they inevitably sue the city over it, the city's justifiable reply should be "piss off". 'Cept that's not what would actually happen.

iagd|5.12.08 @ 4:15PM|#

Dammit, that ping pong table was the best thing to happen to that stretch of Conn Ave.

|5.12.08 @ 4:29PM|#

"Fine. And *if* someone got hurt, and they inevitably sue the city over it, the city's justifiable reply should be "piss off". 'Cept that's not what would actually happen."

The city has sovereign immunity. It is well neigh impossible to win a suit against a city for failure to enforce its codes. You would have to prove that the city knew about it and that it was an imminent hazard that they ignored. Hard to prove a ping pong table is an imminent hazard. Also from the plaintiffs' prospective you wouldn't bother suing the city where there is a big fat insurance company to shake down, especially if your client is black and you can bring suit in the District.

Rimfax|5.12.08 @ 4:39PM|#

This Daxflame wannabe is the best ally that small-government folk could possibly want. Without him, the nanny-staters get to say that the bad potential of these silly laws will be moderated on the enforcement side.

Supposedly, this is a nation of laws, not men. Winstead beautifully demonstrates what happens when we pretend that men will make up for the flaws in the laws.

|5.12.08 @ 6:16PM|#

John is right. Local planning boards, city councils, etc. are big on the "ban everything" kick. And people (in general, except when it gets silly like in the example here) like them for it.

Why do we need to ban skateboards from all the places best suited for skateboarding? Is there some sort of death toll from drug crazed skateboarders that I missed in my news reading? Or might it be because it's teenage boys making noise in a public place, and lord knows we just can't allow that?

Every time a see a huge, public green with a "No Ballplaying Allowed" sign on it a piece of my belief in "Land of the Free" dies a little bit.

|5.12.08 @ 6:22PM|#

Decades ago, a drug influenced friend of mine looked at me and said, "Everytime I see one of those signs (No Rock Climbing) I get pissed off". I agreed then, I agree now.

JB|5.12.08 @ 11:20PM|#

This little Winstead turd should get off my planet. Who gave him a permit to be here?

Can't we stick him back in his mother's womb and abort him?

|5.13.08 @ 3:18AM|#

Frank, I don't use the word 'hero' very often, but you are the greatest hero in American history.