Weird & Wonderful New Britain

Since I have become a local resident in New Britain, I have come across some weird and wonderful people.

1) First off, I had run out of milk so headed out to the local Rite Aid which is a mere 5 minute walk from the house, if that. Firstly the housemates thought I was mad for walking to the shop, offering me a lift as I left the house. I've said it before and I'll say it again; Americans rely on their cars for everything.
As I approached the shop there was a woman crouched outside the door routing through her handbag. As I got closer she shouted up from her handbag that it was closed.
"Is there anywhere else locally to buy milk?" I asked,
"Just up the street there is a Gulf Gas Station. Are you walking?"
"Yes."
"Well, I don't do this often but you don't seem to be giving off any dodgy signals. Hop in the car and I'll give you a ride."

Contact Details Thrust Into My Hand.
I Think I'll Ignore It To Be Honest

I stood by the car as she told me all about how her father gave her this ring when she was younger and one of the stones had fallen out as she tried to find if it had fallen in her bag. When she finally opened the door, there was nappies everywhere. As we put them on the back seat I clambered in as she shot questions after question at me. Am I a student? Why am I still here? When do I go back? Do I like 2Pac? How old am I? What music do I like? What films do I like? etc etc. When we finally got to the shop she decided to see if her lottery ticket had won, which she never usually plays, and followed me inside. It was noticeable that she was very much a local in the shop as she joked with the clerks who stood in silence. She then decided to spend $20 on scratch cards which again, she doesn't do often, and I had to help her pick a winner and then scratch them off. No winners. She was going to buy another with a ripped up $1 that her ex boyfriend and kiddies dad threw at her. Apparently if you have three corners of a dollar bill it counts, although I doubt three individual corners unattached would work.

As we were about to leave a child didn't have enough money for her sweets so the lady nicely paid for them on her card before saying that it was her good deed for the day. Yes weird, but very friendly. Hopping back in the car she gave me the dud scratch cards, some dead flower heads that were lying around the car and a McDonalds yoghurt that had been there God knows how long. She wasn't settled with just giving me the yoghurt, I had to eat it. Yummy.

The Smiling Thief

As we approached home, she told me all about her daughter and wanted my phone number, and facebook email. She then gave me hers saying that if I ever need a ride, or if I'm bored and want to hang out just to give her a call. As I fought with the door handle she leaned in for a hug whilst continuing to talk through the hug and as I made it to my front door. As I said, friendly but weird.

2) The next event was at a bar that John and Lauren took me to one evening and I was wearing my UCLan jumper. The owner of the bar greeted us and asked for our ID’s despite struggling to stand. At this point we didn't know he was the owner. He threw my UK driving license on the floor not knowing what it was, and then asked if John and Lauren were brother and sister. After accepting our ID’s he sat down beside us, bought us some shots and then declared that he wanted my jumper, at first offering $100. I thought he was joking and brushed him off whilst accepting the free shots that he kept pushing our way. He ended up snatching a bottle of vodka off the bar and began pouring it down our throats. At this point I twigged that he was the owner as the barmaid didn't bat an eyelid. He then moved back into business mode, now offering $50 and his jacket for my jumper. Asking if he was serious, he responded by taking off his jacket, putting it on the bar with a $50 note on top. I took them and gave him my jumper and accepted another drink from him. We noticed however, when he left that he had forgotten to take my UCLan jumper with him. John, Lauren, and I looked at each other, picked it up and made our escape $50 richer with a free jacket. I don’t think I’ll go back to that bar anytime soon although I regret not taking the $100.

Jenn's Jacket Dress

Upon telling Jenn, a close friend of mine, the story she was not happy. Since we met she has adopted my UCLan hoody as her own and couldn't believe that I would contemplate selling it. Her way of settling this was to steal the jacket that I had acquired. Women!

3) Evan and I had just come home from the pub when one of my housemates asked if we wanted to go to a friend of his' house for a couple of beers. Never ones to turn down free beer we went and partook in a couple of beverages before leaving to walk home. The housemate needed the toilet as we walked out of the house and decided to use the tree in the front yard as a substitute for the toilet available 30 seconds ago. As he approached the tree I noticed that the car in the driveway next door had the door open and a guy half in and half out fast asleep. I walked up to the car and shook him asking if he was alright. The response was not what I was expecting.

"Get off my lawn."

"I'm not on your lawn, I'm on the driveway."

"I said get off my lawn."

I take one step back returning to the property of the house I had just left. I notice Evan was now stood on the road. After his little stint in prison there was no chance he was being accused of trespassing.

"I'm not on your lawn, now are you ok."

The figure shook his head, obviously becoming aware of what was happening.

"Hey. You've got an accent."

"Yeah, I'm English."

"Oh my God, I love accents. I'm really sorry about that, I'm a little wasted."

"You better get inside mate, who knows if someone has called the police."

"Thanks a lot mate, I love your accent by the way."

There was plenty of hand shaking and requests to say certain things before he went back in the house. 

Landlords Are Not Slumlords

Media Section Of The Council Meeting

For one of our Journalism assignments we had to go to a municipal meeting and write a story on it. Now due to the hurricane and then the snow storm, every meeting I had planned to go to ended up being cancelled. With a few days left before the deadline was upon me, I went to one on Wednesday 14th. Luckily for me, this ended up being arguably the biggest meeting of the year with protesters littering the streets armed with signs, stickers, american flags, and megaphones. It appeared that the local people were a little unhappy with the Mayor of New Britain. To say it was crazy is an understatement. Police blocked the street and guarded the entrance. After telling them we were student Journalists we were allowed in. Inside the building was heaving with people whom I struggled to navigate my way through. The girl I was with happened to be about 5ft tall and her ability to duck and weave amongst the crowd was unbelievable, I struggled to keep up. Because we were busy interviewing outside, we missed the beginning and weren't allowed upstairs due to overcrowding. After talking to the police we were escorted upstairs and was snuck into the meeting room and sat with all the media.  I have attached my article below with some pictures taken with my phone.

Landlords Are Not Slumlords

Townspeople of New Britain flooded to the town council meeting on Wednesday 14^th November to protest against a new license to Landlords in the area, and a fee for multiple police responses throughout the year.

Protests began early in the evening from enraged locals as they collected outside city hall armed with banners, flyers, signs, and a megaphone to express their displeasure at the recently passed ordinances.

The owner of family business Atamo’s was unhappy at the increase in taxes, “I don’t rent out any space, but if this is the way things are heading, surly it won’t be long until they put the taxes up on business properties.”

Local business owners will find that these new laws will freeze economic development in the city and business will suffer.

The Chamber room within the town hall was full to the brim, with people stood around the periphery and even more held in the corridor downstairs to prevent overcrowding.

What the people were protesting are the laws that will require landlords to pay an annual fee of $150 per unit and a $250 penalty for each day the fee is not paid. They are also agitated as ‘hot spots 911’ will force a fee for each response by police that exceeds a pre-determined number.

One landlady stood up and said, “Why are you putting all the landlords in the same boat? I don’t live in a bad section of town, so I don’t understand why I’m being treated the same. I feel targeted and insulted.”

Landlords will notice a loss of equity in their property and the rental property will be devalued. A New Britain landlord who lives in Berlin said the following, “I don’t rent out my house in New Britain for profit; I don’t make a penny. I keep the rent low to get people in for the long term and wait for the equity to build up so when I sell, I’ll have a nice little nest egg. The forced increase in rent may make it hard for me to find a reliable, long term tenant.”

Many tenants were complaining that they couldn’t afford the increase in rent as their

expendable income is low enough as it is. Chants of, ‘The Shelter cannot take anymore’ were heard outside of the city hall as billboards saying ‘Where will I go if I have to move?’ were held aloft.

Landlord Sam Zurker confronted Mayor O’Brian claiming that, “The slumlord of New Britain is the city of New Britain. The Mayor is targeting one of two essential aspects of life. The two are housing and food. He’s making it so that we cannot afford food because the price of rent is going through the roof.”

The threat of fines for police callouts worries the local people as they feel that crime is a problem at the moment, and such a move would only increase it further. Numerous signs saying, ‘The streets are not safe now. What will they be like if you can’t call 911?’ were spotted amongst the protesters as calls for the Mayor to resign were shouted from the masses.

Re-election for Mayor is not until November 2013, but voters are already looking to go elsewhere as they look forward to having the power to vote Tim O’Brian out of office.

                                                

Video Footage - http://a.yfrog.com/img526/6881/1zmxctadgzdeancbsgidle.mp4