Bnei Brak Mayor Chanoch Zeibert promises to return the city’s streets to the people, citing how over recent years the main street, Rabbi Akiva Street, has turned into a colorful marketplace.
The mayor details that anyone familiar with the street can attest to the fact that over recent years, merchants have taken over a good portion of sidewalks to display their merchandise. He admits that the municipality has not addressed the matter but he promises that he is now going to crack down on this trend towards “returning the sidewalks to the people”.
City Hall has already informed merchants that anyone placing merchandise on sidewalks, the public area will be fined and the merchandise will be impounded. The mayor stresses the sidewalks are not hefker and they certainly do not belong to store owners.
Storeowners signal they do not plan to take this as a fait accompli, explaining they pay a handsome fee for arnona property tax and they are not going to willingly give up a practice that has been in place for years. Store owners tell the media they are organized and willing to fight back hard against the new decree.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
Same thing should be done in Geulah – Jerusalem!!!!
#1: the difference is that in J-m you have a freie mayor who could care less about his frum constituents, and therefore will do nothing to assist them
#2 – More like if he tried all the nutjobs in the area would use it as an exuse for rioting so why bother.
To help someone they have to want it., if in Bnei Brak the people want it then the store owners won’t succeed in standing up to the city hall inspectors.
If the residents of Geulah want it and (1) complain to city hall (2) stand up to the crazy bullies and assist the ispectors/police when they come to crack down it will very likely happen.
(Although Barkat does seem to like store owners a lot mre then residents, you ask any resident of the old city how good City Hall responds to calls about nuisance from stores)