Too Desperate To Be Liked

I've lived in two such cities with big inferiority complexes- Cleveland, and Indianapolis. They suffer from a self-consciousness that says, "We're too small!" or, "We need to be more Big Time!" Or, to grab a great line from a Minutemen song: "How will others see me? I'm worried. Worried but I feel guilty."

In many ways, having the Super Bowl is a real coup. Certainly, all the businesses in the downtown area near the Stadium and Super Bowl Village had to be real excited going into this week, ready to make sales on a scale never before seen.

And then, the code enforcers show up. From the Indy Star:

The Red Lion Grog House in Fountain Square was bustling with customers Saturday night when owner Walter Bolinger saw someone walking off with his sidewalk menu board.

He ran outside and chased the culprit down. It was a city code enforcement inspector, who said Bolinger was the culprit for an illegal sidewalk sign displayed in violation of Chapter 635 of the municipal code.

"They still have it," Bolinger said Tuesday of the 3-foot sign, which had been outside his restaurant's front door on Virginia Avenue. "They refuse to relinquish it until February 6th, after the Super Bowl."

This smacks of a certain desperation by the city to be liked by the NFL. Why was this sign not a problem prior to Saturday? Why will the sign be given back after the Super Bowl, when we can surmise it not to be a problem any longer?

I don't believe in this kind of code enforcement generally. But this is silly. What a rotten way to treat the business owners- you know, the people who live here.

This action just screams a message into my ears, that the event is about the tourists, and the locals can go to hell. Not a very pleasant message. Way to go, Indy. Hardly Big League behavior.