Tag: new-york

Indicted and arrested at long last

Picture taken by slowking4, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

In lieu of the usual link to a given news source for this, I’m instead going to link to the Wikipedia article “Indictment of Donald Trump” for reference. It is becoming more difficult to find news sources that don’t appear to be biased one way or the other.

In the past few days, we have finally seen the arrest and indictment of our former president (who I really don’t think is worthy of the title, but that’s another story). The charges are 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, each with a possible four-year sentence to be served consecutively, for a total of 136 years. From the Wikipedia article:

On March 30, 2023, Donald Trump, the president of the United States from 2017 to 2021, was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury for his alleged role in a scandal stemming from hush money payments made to the pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 U.S. presidential election,[2][3][4] making him the first U.S. president to be indicted.[5][6][7] Trump faces 34 charges of falsifying business records in the first degree.[8][9][10] In New York, falsifying business records is a misdemeanor, but can become a felony if done to further another crime.[11] The indictment raises novel and complex legal issues.[12][13]

While I believe it is unfortunate that an indictment of a former president was necessary, it is a relief to see that some government, somewhere, is finally willing to make a statement that nobody is above the law.

For the entire four-year term, and clearly for worse, Mr. Trump ran his presidency with the attitude that he was above the rules. With the New York indictment and the ongoing Georgia and federal investigations, it is finally coming to light just how far above the law Mr. Trump was willing to go.

I know in years past I have often been critical of certain actions by law enforcement and our court system. The reality is that when the laws are enforced equally and fairly and judges make reasonable decisions, I don’t have any issues. Some of the more prominent examples of law enforcement not acting in such a fashion, from past posts, would be when they shoot innocent dogs (and again a couple of years prior) and running a questionable crosswalk enforcement trap.

I don’t think the arrest and indictment of Mr. Trump falls into the category of a law enforcement screw-up. This is our legal system doing its job. This doesn’t mean Mr. Trump is guilty just yet; he is entitled to the same due process of law as the rest of us. Unfortunately, the next in-person hearing is not until December 4, meaning this will be anything but a speedy trial (though there is no guarantee it will go to trial, it is definitely expected).

Perhaps due to his high profile and the lack of likelihood he will become a fugitive, Mr. Trump was allowed to return to Florida right after the hearing. Due to bail reforms in New York (state), he was probably not required to post a bail bond, for better or worse. (The nice part about this is some of the conservatives might shut up about bail reform for a while.) Usually bail bond companies will require a defendant released on bond to call and/or sign in at the office periodically (often once per week). I’m not that worried about Mr. Trump as a flight risk, though some conditions should have been imposed on his pretrial release, as the events of 2021 January 6 have shown that he can be quite dangerous.

He was fingerprinted but no mugshot was taken; to be fair, I think we all know what he looks like by now. Again, I would suspect the mugshot to be another safeguard against a potential escape; however, I do think it would have helped send a clear message to Mr. Trump to have a mugshot taken that yes, we as a society are treating you like a criminal, former president or not. Fingerprints alone may or may not have accomplished this, as these days fingerprinting is also used for identification for professional licenses.

In summary, while this is an unfortunate chapter in American history in many respects, I fully support the district attorneys and court system in New York state in this effort, and believe the world will be a better place as a result of due process of law in this matter, including the trial.

Ten years of Trenta at Starbucks: a retrospective

So apparently it’s been a whole decade since Starbucks rolled out the Trenta size beverages, judging by the date of my previous post “To Starbucks, size matters“. A lot has changed since then, but as the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

For starters, the Trenta size hasn’t gone anywhere over the last decade. Not surprisingly, I have ordered my fair share of iced teas in this size, though I have backed off to Venti or even Grande in certain situations (when I know I won’t be drinking a whole lot, or when I’m low on funds on my Starbucks account and don’t feel like reloading). Much to even my own surprise, I’m also ordering the occasional Frappucino or iced mocha, though I still consider the iced tea my go-to drink (even if it’s sometimes the passion tea instead of good old black).

I get why Mr. Sorenson objected so strongly to Starbucks adding a fourth and comparatively large size. But the reality is, this is Starbucks doing what a business should do: listening to the customers and giving them what they want. And clearly, the Trenta size is what they wanted.

Looking back, the controversy surrounding the Trenta size reminds me a lot of another event I wrote about, the New York City large soda restrictions. Though the latter happened later, there is definitely a common thread. For soda fans with quart-sized appetites, the good news is the New York state courts struck down the restrictions stating that the New York City Board of Health exceeded its authority in establishing the rule, and it was eventually formally repealed.

While I get that there is a point at which soda consumption starts to become unhealthy (some of that, unfortunately, comes from personal experience), I believe that the public backlash from the NYC soda size restriction shows that people don’t like being ordered around and, in a way, herded like cattle. The backlash against Starbucks rolling out the larger size never materialized as some might have feared or welcomed, whatever the case may be.

Long live the Trenta. Here’s to many more great years to come.

The infamous soda battle of New York City

A recent ABC News story details the by-now-well-known proposal by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. From the article:

In his latest effort to fight obesity in this era of Big Gulps and triple bacon cheeseburgers, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is proposing an unprecedented ban on large servings of soda and other sugary drinks at restaurants, delis, sports arenas and movie theaters.

Drinks would be limited to 16 ounces, which is considered a small serving at many fast-food joints.

Now, let’s think about this for a minute: A 16-ounce (473 mL) limit would even ban 20-ounce (591 mL) bottles. A typical medium-size drink in most national chains is 20 ounces, sometimes up to 24 ounces (710 mL). (I say “national” because at Taco Cabana and Whataburger, 20 ounces is the small, 32 ounces (946 mL) is the medium, and 44 ounces (1.3 L) is the large. But what do you expect from Texas companies? We’d never let some Yankee tell us 16 ounces is as big as you can go.)

Once upon a time, sodas were commonly available in 16-ounce (glass) bottles. I’m not sure of the exact year of the change, but the common size for bottles now is the 20-ounce size (with some locations offering 1-liter bottles in some flavors). I know at least Coca-Cola offers aluminum bottles in 8.5 ounce (251 mL) which roughly correspond to a former glass bottle size (which I’m not sure if it’s still being made), but this is a specialty item that’s not sold very widely. The ones I bought were mainly purchased for the package design (that, and I was at a hotel and I didn’t feel like going all the way back down to the gift shop on the first floor).

Not surprisingly, it didn’t take long for a major soda company’s PR department to fire one right back:

“The people of New York City are much smarter than the New York City Health Department believes,” Coca-Cola Co. said in a statement. “New Yorkers expect and deserve better than this. They can make their own choices about the beverages they purchase.”

Kudos to Coca-Cola for striking back against this insanity. To be fair, they’ll feel anything that would kill sales in a city the size of New York, so it’s in their interest to say this is dumb. But I’m sure their customers feel the same way.

The article goes on to cite this nugget of dubious wisdom:

Bloomberg said people who want to guzzle soda would still be free to order more than one drink. But he said restricting servings to 16 ounces each could help curb consumption.

Now, I doubt this is actually true, and I’ll explain why. For one, most fast food restaurants allow free refills. Even some movie theatres allow free refills, which to be honest, at the prices charged is the least they can do. It’s not clear from everything I’ve read whether or not Bloomberg plans to ban those as well. If so, this is even worse than I could have imagined, and I would even say it could be considered restraint of trade if looked at in the right way.

Second, what I predict will happen is that people will start becoming less restrained about bringing in their own drinks. The sale on two 12-ounce cans or two 16-ounce fountain drinks will be lost to the convenience store with no limit. And the restaurant owners, rather than risk irking their customers and losing the sale entirely, will grow accustomed to seeing someone bring in a soda from the convenience store around the corner and just not say anything.

It’s obvious why Mayor Bloomberg is floating such an outrageous policy: in New York, the term limit for mayor is three terms, and this is his third term. So, not surprisingly, voters have little recourse should they feel he stepped over the line. However, it would not surprise me in the least if Bloomberg’s successor decides to repeal this law should it pass very early in the term.

So my response to this short-sighted proposal is this: If Mayor Bloomberg really cares about health, how about an aggressive tax against tobacco products (cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco, etc)? Make it so expensive to smoke in New York that people will have to quit due to financial reasons. That will do far more for health than any silly “you can only have a small soda” law. And if for some reason cities can’t tax cigarettes in New York State, then the law up there is even more broken than I thought.

The future of event ticketing, maybe

Some of you may remember my previous post on ticket scalping made in response to Trent Reznor’s post on the NIN forums. Well, I was recently reading Mashable and found this post about a new startup called SaveFans! (abbreviated SF in following text) which is an offer-based ticket platform. Now if you remember my original post, I quote Trent Reznor as saying:

My guess as to what will eventually happen if / when Live Nation and TicketMaster merges is that they’ll move to an auction or market-based pricing scheme…

At the time, I said this would be a bad thing, and as suggested, with the ticket providers unilaterally setting “market-based” prices, it would indeed be disastrous for fans.

The twist with SF is that buyers are allowed to negotiate with sellers. This, by itself, is not a bad idea on the surface. It is still a possibility true scalpers will use the system and not accept perfectly reasonable offers for tickets they hold.

However, it does give the fans a chance to say what they think about truly usurious and monopolistic pricing. SF is not a panacea. Ticket buyers still need some form of protection against egregious scalping as well as not being stuck with unusable and yet non-transferable tickets. Ticket sellers need some form of protection against scalpers profiting at their expense as a result of an attempt to keep shows affordable for fans.

The only way I see to keep everyone happy is to allow event managers/promoters to opt an event out of SF or similar sites or move to a model where ticket transfers are tightly regulated or simply cannot happen without the express approval of the ticketing agency or the event’s management/promoters. Many event managers/promoters nominally prohibit the resale of tickets above face value; it is a long-standing policy of most venues (at least those in Houston) that resale of tickets on the property of the venue and adjoining parking lots is prohibited, sometimes just resale above face value, sometimes any resale. It should be noted that platforms such as SF can be used for good or evil. They aren’t much different from eBay or Craigslist in this regard. It’s still up to the ticket buyers (fans) to promote responsibility and defend their rights.

I see it as unlikely, here in 2010, that more states/cities will pass anti-scalping legislation. In 1999, the New York Office of the Attorney General released a report on scalping. In that report, several suggestions were made on how to reform the ticketing process, and protecting licensed ticket brokers by raising the premium they are allowed to charge above the listed price (at the time of this report, the greater of $5 or 10%; it’s not clear whether or not the extra fees are included in the amount the 10% is calculated on). It is interesting to note that some of the ticket brokers (and I am deviating a bit from my usual “scalper” terminology here, since this is New York we are talking about, where the types and quantity of ticketed events are vastly different) label their markup as a “service fee” which was not addressed by the applicable law. This, however, should be seen for what it is: an attempt to exploit a legal technicality.

I’m not sure what became of the release of this report. I do know that a decade later, scalping is still a major problem.