Not about jobs- no, it is about controlling those that can do.

Remember this next time you hear about the "low-wages" the boys in blue get, to make you sleep comfortable at night. (The Whose Paranoid household does not dial 911; we use 1911- at least until we can get to the shotgun):

Club owners cry 'shakedown'
Law requires nightspots hire off-duty officers for security

By J. ANDREW CURLISS, Staff Writer

"RALEIGH -- The police first visited Gary H. Gibson a year ago, shortly after his Loafers Beach Club opened at a new location on Atlantic Avenue in North Raleigh.

The officers, Gibson recalled, said he needed to hire an off-duty Raleigh cop to watch the club's parking lot Friday and Saturday nights.

Gibson resisted. He said his patrons, mostly regulars and couples who dance the shag, do not cause trouble. Police said he could be charged with a crime if he didn't comply.

Reluctantly, Gibson hired an officer at $30 an hour.

"It was a shakedown," Gibson said. "Pure and simple: a shakedown of me by the cops."

But the arrangement is legal.

Raleigh police in the past 15 months have stepped up enforcement of a city ordinance that directly benefits them.

The measure requires any business with a capacity greater than 99 that offers "amplified entertainment" to post a sworn officer over the parking area. It applies when the business is open from 8 p.m. until one hour past closing.

Officers have handed out two dozen misdemeanor citations since mid-2003 to bars, restaurants and nightclubs for failing to hire an officer.

In the three years prior, records show, police cited a total of four violators. The ordinance was enacted in 1999 to curb problems at nightspots near residential areas. Its primary goal was to cut down on noise, including that from throbbing bass speakers.

But another section requires parking lot security, overseen by an officer with the power to arrest. The idea is to prevent trouble without tying up on-duty officers.

The requirement applies any day the business is open, regardless of whether it has a band on stage or is playing amplified entertainment, defined essentially as music from speakers.

Raleigh's well-known Angus Barn restaurant is subject to the law, as are many other familiar spots: Rudino's Pizza & Grinders on Harvest Oaks Drive; Champps Restaurant, the Twisted Fork and Ted's Montana Grill at Triangle Town Center; and the Brownstone Hotel in West Raleigh.

In February 2003, national attention fell on nightclub safety after more than 20 people were killed in a stampede at a Chicago bar. A few days later, more than 90 people were killed in a fire at a Rhode Island nightclub.

Raleigh and Wake County officials say it was in response to those incidents that they began making surprise visits to nightspots to ensure they were following rules, including having an officer in the parking lot. By late May 2003, police started writing citations. Many of the cases are dismissed later, records show, after officers are hired.

Zoning inspectors also can enforce the ordinance by writing civil citations for a violation. They never have, records show."

There is quite a bit more at the link, and you should read the complete article. Further, just how many towns and cities across our great land have "ordinances and laws" just like this?

I would like to know- wouldn't you?

--WP