Is It Finally Beer, Food Truck and Blocked Sidewalk Season Again?

 

After several calls last year to HPD informing them of vehicles and food trucks parking on the sidewalk in the 700 block of State Street in front, and to the side, of the Return Brewery (sometimes several vehicles at a time), I was told by someone at HPD (I forget who it was) that the management at the brewery had been spoken to about the issue of their customers parking illegally and that "they will be  taking care of it."  Through the fall, the sidewalk continued to be utilized for parking of food trucks and brewery customers' cars, obstructing the public right of way, sometimes completely.  Hooray for much needed successful new businesses in downtown Hudson!

Yesterday, with the brewery as busy as I've seen it in several months, the unwelcome, illegal and dangerous situation was evident once again, as normalized and ignored by the brewery's management as it was last year.  As long as there is no curb between the sidewalk and the street in front of the brewery, customers driving there will continue to assume that driving and parking is allowed on the sidewalk, perhaps even thinking that since there is no curb, the sidewalk is actually a driveway or de facto parking area of some sort.  Seeing as a new curb is not going to appear anytime soon, until a sign or two goes up to stop this dangerous and disrespectful nonsense*, expect brewery management to continue to do nothing and for HPD to continue to occasionally respond when they are called, merely responding with reminders to car owners and brewery management but without actually enforcing the law.  

HPD isn't interested in keeping cars and trucks from occupying (and driving on!) sidewalks, even when pedestrians are forced to walk in the street.  It's up to the business owners to do that.  Now that's what I call effective community policing and law enforcement to rid the city of a quality-of-life issue that can easily get a pedestrian, perhaps a child or two, killed (not to mention just to annoy and inconvenience pedestrians)!  Would HPD be so laissez-fair lazy and negligent if cars and food trucks were found parking on the sidewalks of Warren Street, perhaps directly in front of City Hall?  And how do you suppose Mishanda Franklin and Kamal Johnson would explain a pedestrian death or serious injury resulting from a car blocking the sidewalk, an issue in front of a particular business that the city had known was going on for over a year and that HPD had responded to several times, even speaking to the business owner about the issue on at least one occasion?  

"We're so sorry it happened, but we tried our best to warn the business several times!  Please don't sue us."

OBSCENE!

OBSCENER!

Our friends at Galvan are known for keeping their sidewalks as dangerous as possible, while our Code Enforcement Office is known for allowing them to do so by doing nothing in the way of actual enforcement of the code.  Well, is it any surprise that Return Brewing is located on a Galvan property?  Any property owner with even half a sense of decency and one iota of common sense would immediately put an end to vehicles parking on and blocking their sidewalks.  But, hey, this is Galvanville we're living in here, and the Return Brewery is located in their private, self-named "GALVAN DISTRICT."  Leave them the hell alone; they live by their own rules (or lack thereof)!  If they want to allow vehicles to park on their sidewalks, who is Code Enforcement or HPD to tell them they can't?

TYPICAL GALVAN SIDEWALK

*According to our city code and to Rob Perry at DPW, the installation of new traffic control devices (which includes signs of all types) can only be authorized by the so-called Hudson Police Commissioner, a guy by the name of Shane Bower who a) has zero interest in availing himself of the public or the council at informal meetings; b) is an appointed city official who "does not work for HPD," according to numerous HPD employees; and, c) who may or may not still be holding the position Kamal Johnson appointed him to in late 2020.  When was the last time you saw or heard from Police Commissioner Shane Bower?  What important (unpaid) work has been up to lately, do you suppose?  And where outside of Hudson does he live?  According to easily accessible online Columbia County property tax information, the only Shane Bower who owns a property in the county resides in Elizaville.  Is there even one sidewalk or pedestrian crosswalk in all of Elizaville?