Oh New Hampshire No...

I'm trying to figure out what, exactly, the point is here...

New Hampshire city suing ‘Robin Hood’ for paying parking meters of strangers

The city of Keene, N.H., is suing “Robin Hood and his Merry Men” — a group that has made a name for itself by paying people’s parking meters before they can get slapped with a ticket from local parking enforcement officers.

The Union Leader reported Tuesday that six “Robin Hooders” troll the streets of the city’s quaint downtown in search of cars parked at expired meters.

The meter maids parking enforcement officers are claiming that the Merry Men are harassing them - by recording them and following them around. If that's harassment, these officers need to harden up a bit. First off, there are three "parking enforcement officers" for a town of 23,000 people - My town has 7,000 people and five full time officers, period. Secondly, there's a good amount of "he said/she said" going on, and absent the video footage, it's hard to see exactly what kind of "harassment" they're facing. It sounds more like the kind of "praise" we routinely heap on TSA agents - the whole "don't you have anything better to do" kind of "harassment".

And then I realized the date. It's mid-May. The college kids are all headed home for the summer, so the Keene PD has no easy source of free beer and drunk & disorderly charges. It's a college town with no college in session, so the revenue enhancement begins in earnest. Parking enforcement with several thousands college kids forgetting to feed the meters is easy; over the summer with tourists the pickin's are slimmer. Naturally, anyone depriving them of this extra revenue is to be viewed as the enemy.

Anyone want to place bets on how long it takes the town of Keene, NH to lobby for an armored vehicle for traffic enforcement?

That is all.

Another dispatch from...

(image courtesy of Robb Allen)