A Bad Use Of Resources.

Arlington, Virginia is the most educated county in the country. It is ranked in the top twenty in terms of median household income, is highly "walkable," and has a low crime rate. It is not a place where there are a lot of people deliberatly trying to break the law.

Over the past twenty four months, a notably high number of new restaurants and bars have opened in the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington. Despite the economic downturn, these enterprises are thriving.

Over the past two decades Arlington has elected liberal after liberal to local, state and county offices. This along with law-and-order conservatives elected in the rest of the state results in a bad combination of liberal style over-regulation with conservative style zealous-enforcement.

Recently, despite no visible reason to do so, the Arlington Police and Fire Departments have launched gestapo-style fire code raids on the afformentioned Clarendon establishments. On a recent Friday night no less than five police cars with twenty officers backed up a fire marshall team to crowd the streets and sidewalks while they carried out their raids.

Arguably, there are good reasons for fire codes, but the manner in which the Arlington Police and Fire Departments have taken to carrying out their enforcement against thriving new businesses is unnecessarily adversarial and devoid of cooperation in a situation where no one is trying to do anything wrong. If these bars and eateries need to make changes to become compliant, a good deal of taxpayer funds and a general sense of civility can be saved by a different, less jack-booted approach.