Mayor Bloomberg came down on the side of theft prevention, rather than that of quality of life yesterday, when he vetoed a New York City Council bill that would have banned the sale of motion-sensitive car alarms in the city. Damn you, Bloomberg, you shill for the cotton and ear-plugs industries!
The bill, passed by the council by a vote of 46-2, would have prohibited car alarms from being sold or installed within city limits, but allowed such alarms to be used by car owners with factory-installed alarms or those bought outside the city.
I know, it was a relatively toothless bill, kind of like the city's recently overturned ban on tatooing, but maybe it would have further encouraged alarm manufacturers to advance newer methods of silent auto theft prevention, using RFID or other technologies, and phase out the "devil's cheer" (you know which alarm sound I mean: the one with six alternating patterns of beeps, sirens and squawks). If it allowed a single New Yorker to get a good night's sleep, the bill would have been worth it.