Green spaces

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

So, what do you think? Is it OK that the new state liquor store in Nashua has some parking spaces designated for LEV/Hybrid Vehicles Only, as David Brooks reported in Sunday’s Telegraph?

Or is that unfair?

Well, of course it’s unfair but it’s still a good idea, even if it has no force under law. Park your SUV in one of those spaces, as Brooks wrote, and nothing will happen to you.

“It’s not something that’s enforced by statute,” said Liquor Commissioner Michael Milligan. “It’s a suggestion.”

And it’s one we like.

Sure, we all know global warming is a lie perpetrated by an evil cabal of environmentalists, tree huggers, liberals and very old folk singers, but just in case we’re wrong, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to encourage people to buy environmentally friendly cars. And if giving them better parking spaces does the trick, why not?

As long as we’re thinking this way, though, maybe we should use the stick as well as the carrot. How about setting up special parking spaces for SUV drivers with signs that say:

“I Guzzle Gas.”

Too much? OK, forget the stick, just the carrot, then.

What’s really good here is that a state agency came up with a kind of off-the-wall proposal and put it into operation. We tend to think of state agencies as somewhat staid, somewhat protective, somewhat less interested in innovation than protecting, as Mel Brooks said in “Blazing Saddles, “Our phony baloney jobs.”

But the state Liquor Commission obviously did some brainstorming and came up with something kind of fun.

Gives you reason to hope, doesn’t it?