Photo by Daniel C. TsangDear Councilmembers:
Your town has become the municipal version of the Bush White House. The California Fair Political Practices Commission is investigating Mayor Bruce “Bulldozer” Broadwater's alleged conflicts of interest in land deals. Meanwhile, your own citizens are on the cusp of a ballot-box revolution because you all continue to hand out free land to wealthy hotel developers.
And how have you responded? Much like the Bush White House, with a grand little war of your own: the fight against cybercafés.
Earlier this year, you unanimously passed a moratorium on new cybercafés and imposed tighter controls—including curfews and mandatory surveillance cameras—on the 20 already open.
On July 9, though, you went nuclear, demanding that cybercafés close at 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and midnight Friday and Saturday. No minors are allowed after 8 p.m., and you now require each café to keep a customer log with names and addresses.
You claim to have at heart the best interests of the youth who hang out in cybercafés. “Maybe there's a point in the future to relax the rules,” councilman Mark Leyes told The Orange County Register. “But for now, I don't think I want to risk another kid being killed.”
“Risk another kid being killed”? Your regulations threaten to shut down the wildly successful gaming zones and create the very problem you seek to ameliorate by throwing out on the streets hundreds of restless teenagers.
A couple of points about your arguments regarding the alleged cybercafé menace:
First, you continue to believe the oft-disproved myth that imagined violence begets real violence. Countless media studies on the subject have been inconclusive; your source for the link between cyber cafés and killings appears to be a malignant series of Register news stories noteworthy for their awesome ignorance of computer gaming.
And second: Where's the cybercafé crime wave? The murders you say prompted your draconian policies—Phuong Huu Ly's on Dec. 30, 2001, and the shooting death of Eduardo Fernández on June 8—took place outsidecybercafés, the latter nearly two miles away. In fact, only one violent crime has occurred inside a cybercafé: a Nov. 3, 2001, brawl that wasn't reported by the dailies until after the first murder.
If you're looking for potentially lethal circumstances from which to protect people, consider these: swimming pools (eight OC children have drowned this year), cars (80 killed) and bars (three murders). Oh, and Hardy Boysnovels: two young men died last month exploring a mineshaft.
