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posted by takyon on Saturday June 10 2017, @07:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the full-life-consequences dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

In August, Milwaukee's Lake Park saw swarms of Pokémon Go players, some of whom trampled and trashed the area, making a general nuisance of themselves. Not everyone behaved badly, as John Dargle, Jr, director of the Milwaukee County Department of Parks, Recreation & Culture, acknowledged in a letter [PDF] at the time. But a subset of thoughtless gamers created enough of a burden that Milwaukee County Supervisor Sheldon Wasserman proposed an ordinance [PDF] to require augmented reality game makers to obtain a permit to use county parks in their apps.

The ordinance was approved and took effect in January. It has become a solution waiting for a problem – according to a spokesperson for Milwaukee County, no game maker has bothered to apply for a permit since then.

[...] Nonetheless, in April, Candy Lab, a maker of augmented reality games based in Nevada, filed a lawsuit "out of genuine fear and apprehension that this ordinance, conceptually and as written, poses a mortal threat not only to Candy Lab AR's new location-based augmented reality game, but also to its entire business model, and, indeed, to the emerging medium of augmented reality as a whole."

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @08:44PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @08:44PM (#523580)

    The city is entitled to SOMETHING - the questions is, just what are they entitled to?

    I disagree. The city is entitled to nothing because the people using the streets, sidewalks, parks, etc already pay taxes. I don't hear any clamoring for map applications or navigation systems having to pay for their users to use city streets.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday June 10 2017, @08:59PM (2 children)

    by frojack (1554) on Saturday June 10 2017, @08:59PM (#523584) Journal

    Exactly. People don't drive vary far to Play Pokémon Go. They are all locals. I doubt Niantic made any incremental money because someone visited a park. I suspect the City is entitled to the extra sales tax revenue generated by the run on the concession stands or near by businesses, or the sales tax on RunAway's increased ammunition purchases.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday June 11 2017, @12:14AM (1 child)

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @12:14AM (#523625)

      They are all locals.

      I grew up in that general area (well, within 200 miles...) and its complicated.

      Ah well, um, in this specific case in a hyper segregated city the locals pay $500K to live in a minority free neighborhood and then because they live in a city instead of a suburb the unwashed masses can walk down the road 10 minutes and discolor their pristine park land.

      Most of the locals complaining are of the extreme leftist variety where holiness is signalled by living in a pure white neighborhood that is holier than us burb-dwellers because they're closer to the hood than we are, and when the hood comes out to say "hi" they kind of flip their shit and freak out.

      What we're witnessing is the phone equivalent of "driving while black".

      You'll note this "problem" isn't happening in Mequon / Brookfield / Chenequa because poor folk can't walk 25 miles but they can walk a couple city blocks. If there were poor people in walking distance of Chenequa... well there aren't so it doesn't matter.

      Milwaukee is a weird city. Theres tons of people and housing stock for incomes below $20K/yr and explosive construction for tens of thousands of people (as if there are that many in Milwaukee) over $500K/yr and there's nothing in between, thats the purpose of the burbs. The burbs are difficult to afford at under $50K/yr or so, which is why there's all the gaslighting about how millennials, who happen to be dirt poor on average, love living is some of the worst parts of the city.

      I lived in a burb named "West Allis" (and yes there is no Allis or East allis, but there used to be an industrial employer named "Allis Chalmers"... ) until 1978 when it started getting really bad. I was just a kid then.

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday June 11 2017, @12:59AM

        by frojack (1554) on Sunday June 11 2017, @12:59AM (#523636) Journal

        What we're witnessing is the phone equivalent of "driving while black".

        And it seems a lot of people want to justify making that a license-able event.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday June 10 2017, @10:28PM (1 child)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Saturday June 10 2017, @10:28PM (#523614) Journal

    The city is entitled to nothing because the people using the streets, sidewalks, parks, etc already pay taxes.

    And the official representatives of said taxpayers (the Milwaukee County Board) have determined that this permit system is appropriate. If said taxpayers disagree with the county's response to this, they are welcome to vote for other representation, make objections at council meetings (or whatever), etc.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @03:26AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @03:26AM (#523681)

      I'm not sure you actually understand the subject matter, and as such seem to be proselytising for some bizarre governmental oversight, and special taxation, of companies that mention public spaces in games.