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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

You surely support judges having greater discretion in awarding downward departures. Same concept.

In some instances, a return to the old way of doing things is warranted. And preferable to a rigid code. If a cop should run across a warehouse full of artists who've no other housing options, maybe allowing that he can say the following without losing his job and pension might be a smart policy:

I know this is not up to code. But I also understand that you all being homeless is a much worse result. So to those of you who have this lease, understand, if this place should burn, and anyone die, you will be held liable. I can't stop you from doing what you're doing because as a practical matter, no matter what fine I impose, or eviction I order, you'll correct long enough to appear compliant and then resume doing what you're doing. So I suggest you all employ as many safety precautions as possible. And I suggest you determine what this requires by calling the fire department and determining what what is needed as soon as possible.

And we should develop law that excuses public officials from enforcing draconian eviction penalties where the immediate negative impact (homelessness) outweighs the possible but unlikely dire negative impact where the inhabitants have been advised about taking precautions (fire resulting in deaths).

People have to be adults at some point. If the police visit, tell you you're in danger, and you do nothing, they should face no liability if that danger comes to pass. Almost all codes and regs in this country, which assumes its citizens should be treated as partially-challenged and its codes applied with a zero tolerance standard, are too rigid.

We all know zero tolerance isn't real. With any law, there's a set of stealth considerations governing whether it's applied, how it's applied, and to what extent it's applied. That should be made transparent by giving the authorities more latitude.

I think there are probably a bunch of good reasons why cops don't enforce fire codes. You don't have to work too hard to find ways to improve the way the City of Oakland operates. If you could just get its employees to do what their counterparts in other cities routinely do, that would be a big improvement. But affluent cities don't usually have problems with gentrification. Oddly enough, those see to hit poor places.