Rules Examiners Meet to Examine Carr Mill Commandments

A group of Rules Examiners recently convened to discuss the New and Improved Carr Mill Mall rules. The Carrboro News was the only paper invited to the session and so we feel it is our duty to report what we observed. As we don't have the space to report everything that was said, we will only provide what we see as the highlights. Names have been omitted to protect the guilty.

"The first set of rules were called the "Good Neighbor Rules" and there were 7 of them, the were replaced by an "Open Space" policy that was raised to 11 rules. This shows a change in direction, clearly meant to put some distance between the management and the clients. They obviously realized that you can see your clients as "friends" and "good neighbors" as they will take advantage of you just as a teacher has to keep a certain air of distance between his first grade students."

"Parking and facilities are for the customers using the Mall businesses. That's obviously an attempt to intimidate, but the problem is that the people who are reading the sign are on the grounds, so they are obviously using the facilities. That golden rule needs to be posted all over town so that people who park at Carr Mill and go somewhere else see the sign. It does not good where it is and is either not thought out or an attempt to intimidate people who can't be intimidated since they won't see the sign"

"Stay out of all garden areas, trees and the pond. Rules but no rules. Putting a little ineffective sign in two spots will hardly serve to keep people out of the trees, garden areas and ponds. Especially since it's mostly kids who are in the trees, garden areas and ponds(although I haven't seen too many kids don their mask and fins and swim in the pond.) Wouldn't it be a better idea to make the signs larger and near the things that you don't want the kids on? Most people would say yes, but it seems like there is a movement to project the image that we don't have rules in Weaver Street when in reality, we have more rules than we know what to do with...."

"Clean up after your dogs..... are you kidding me? With children playing on the grass and rolling around can you possibly clean up after a dog. I don't care how many napkins you have, you can not clean up piss or runny shit off the lawn. To do that you'd need an excavator to extract ALL the contaminated grass and soil. 'Cleaned up with water and disposable bowls'.... good luck!"

"Tables and Chairs should remain in designated dining areas.... after a careful examination of the premises, I failed to see any designated dining areas. I saw plenty mention of designated dining areas but no areas designated as dining areas. Perhaps the designated dining areas are where the tables happen to be at the time, but...I'm just not sure... I just don't know"

"No smoking except at the edge of the lawn and designated areas and no drinking at the edge of the lawn... the lawn is circular with part of the edge of the lawn next to the tables which is possibly, a designated eating area. Does that mean you can smoke at the edge of the grass near the tables and drink at the edge of the grass near the road? This is quite confusing if you think about it... but maybe the purpose is not to think about it, but for the rules to be posted so that they are posted."

"These rules seem to leave a lot of rules for interpretation and I foresee some confrontation in the future as the rules are slowly tightened. These rules really need to be contained in more of a book with a lot more details. These are full-fledged laws and need some sub groupings of "a" "b" and "c's" as well as sub-sub groupings of "i", "ii", and "iii's". But of course with the Police Department conveniently located across the street, we can always call Officer Bill to come over and ask the kids to climb down from the trees, get out of the pond and stop smoking in the undesignated areas. That's a perfectly good use for our tax dollars.."

The overall feeling among the analyzers is that the rules will prove to be fairly ineffective and will take a police force housed across the street to enforce. To ask the Security Guard(speaking of Security Guard, where is the Security Guard, we haven't seem him in months).

One person summed it up perfectly...

"The rules were written in the same way that I did my final year long project in one night. I knew I needed the project to graduate, but I didn't really have the time to or desire to do it, so I just threw something together to make it look like I was trying. My teacher knew I was slacking, I knew I was slacking and I knew that she knew I was slacking and she knew that I knew that she knew I was slacking. But I handed in the project and everyone was happy!"