This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Strip malls have been notorious in the past for hiring companies to enforce no-parking zones in their lots, creating horror stories about tow trucks hauling away cars under questionable circumstances.
The law usually is on the property owners' side, recognizing their right to limit parking in front of their stores.
But Murray resident Allen Bodtcher wonders who's watching the strip malls when their own activities block the parking.
Bodtcher says whenever a large snowstorm hits, the plows hired to clear the lot at the strip mall at 6000 South and State Street push the snow into large heaps on the handicapped stalls, rather than at the far edges of the lot.
After the last big storm, snow was heaped 4 feet high on the handicapped stalls, he said, making it impossible for anyone to park there.
He complained to Murray's police, but they told him they cannot act because it's private property.
It is illegal for a motorist to park a car without the proper permit in a handicapped zone. But the law says nothing about snowpacks parking there.
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Waste not, want not • Golfers in Salt Lake City felt former Mayor Ralph Becker's administration gave their sport — and the city courses on which they play — short shrift.
As a final blow to the golf community, city officials last November ignored what seemed to be an ingenious cost-saving idea by some enterprising employees of the city's Golf Enterprise Fund.
Since the city had ordered the closure of the popular Wingpointe Golf Course near Salt Lake City International Airport, the workers suggested a plan they said could save the fund a lot of money.
First, they proposed salvaging the putting greens, which they said could be sold to private country clubs and other public courses for 50 cents a square foot. And they could salvage the 150 acres of fairways, which could be sold or kept in supply to meet future needs of other courses.
The 4,000-square-foot maintenance shed could be moved to Mountain Dell, which doesn't have one, and save the golf fund $30,000 to $40,000.
City officials instead plan to pave over the front nine holes of Wingpointe so that crews rebuilding the airport will have a place to park. Moving the shed was nixed as well.
But the course demolition hasn't taken place yet, and there is a new administration at the helm. So who knows? Maybe somebody will listen to the golf employees after all.
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State-sanctioned hate speech • The Utah Division of Motor Vehicles has been inconsistent, to say the least, when it comes to which vanity license plates to ban.
As I have written before, DMV bureaucrats vetoed an application for "Rydn Hi" because they said it referred to drug use when, in fact, it was the name of the couple's country band.
They vetoed a Vietnam veteran's application for "CIB-69" to commemorate the Combat Infantry Badge he received and the year he received it. The DMV said "69" carries a sexual connotation.
They also vetoed "MERLOT" because it was the name of a wine.
But the agency allowed such vanity plates as "GUNMAN," IHATEU" and "AK47."
Now, a vanity plate was recently spotted in Salt Lake City on a blue pickup that says "IH8SUWA."
I would assume the SUWA part stands for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, a conservation advocacy organization that the Cliven and Ammon Bundys of the world probably wouldn't like.
Let's just hope the truck's owner doesn't have a second car bearing the "GUNMAN" plate.