Is he the asshole?
Sigh. Rule number one, plus two through six or seven hundred: don’t be an asshole.
A controversial New Year’s Eve fireworks display at the billionaire owner of New York’s Empire State Building’s property outside Queenstown is understood to have caused a large scrub fire.
Why was the fireworks display controversial? Well, because of the risk of fire. Cool that the guy did it anyway.
Empire State Realty Trust chairman, president and chief executive Tony Malkin of New York had upset neighbours of his Dalefield property with plans for an extravagant 14-minute fireworks display to bring in 2023.
Because fireworks are a necessity of life?
Now, several neighbours who were watching the display closely with fears for their animals, believe that a sizeable blaze was started by the fireworks.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz) said there were three separate fires on steep terrain which spanned an estimated 1.2ha of land in Dalefield near Arrowtown.
The guy could have just canceled the fireworks. They’re not in fact a necessity of life, and when they’re actively dangerous, how about just not setting them off and causing major harm?
The New York property tycoon’s fireworks plans had enraged neighbours, the majority of whom owned horses and other livestock animals.
So why couldn’t he just be a mensch, a decent neighbor, a decent human, and not do the hazardous thing?
In a statement to the ODT before the event, the [fireworks-having] property owners said they had “deep and long-lived social and charitable connections” in the area.
“As a courtesy, beyond any requirement, mindful of house pets and livestock, we have reached out to neighbours to ensure they are appraised of our plans,” the statement said.
What a complete dickhead. Just don’t do it. Don’t set your barn on fire, don’t shoot at the neighbors’ children, don’t bomb the local school, don’t pour toxic chemicals into the nearest river, and don’t set off fireworks in an area likely to burst into flames. Just don’t.
He rubbed salt into the wound by saying “We are sorry for any inconvenience.” Don’t pretend to be sorry; don’t do it.
is there a billionaire anywhere in the world who is not a sociopath? Sociopathy if not outright criminality is almost a requirement.
What does a “real estate investment trust” owner really contribute to the world anyway?
I wonder if anyone says “Sorry for the inconvenience” after doing a school shooting. Probably yes.
Less than telephone sanitizers.
@3: I had to google that. Ha! I didn’t remember that line, from when I read the Hitchhiker series, probably thirty years ago.
I’m localish to that area, living about 15-20 drive away. A lot of the work I do is in that area. Very beautiful rural lifestyle blocks set in spectacular scenery with a mixture of native scrub and grassland and colonial plantings. Fire is an ever present risk in summer. Lots of locals have animals, both domestic, farm, and horses. That makes a large scale fireworks display unneighbourly even if legal. Setting fire to the countryside is definitely not legal. Problem is to a guy this rich any fee charged for the fallout of the volunteer firefighters (on a public holiday in the middle of the night) will be insignificant.
Admittedly I don’t move in such exalted social circles as that, but I’ve never heard his name mentioned in connection with driving social and cultural philanthropy in the region. A few donations also don’t give you a pass for being an asocial git either.
Re “any fee charged for the fallout of the volunteer firefighters”:
Also, wealthy people sometimes view fines, intended to be punitive and to discourage repeat occurrences, as fees, the mere cost of doing something. If you can afford the charges then it isn’t wrong, apparently.
Aren’t there some laws against disturbing the peace, creating a fire hazard, arson, endangerment, noise ordinances, or some such there in NZ? Seems like the neighbors could get together a class action.
I’m not a big fan either, my dog always headed for the bathtub to hide during any fireworks. It panics livestock and horses too, they’ll injure themselves and break fences trying to escape. It’s not just the holidays here, it’s any occasion, sports events, mostly just for the hell of it as far as I know. This didn’t happen when I lived in California, as the laws there kept it mostly in check, but the fireworks yahoos here are not as restricted, in fact anyone over 18 can light off fireworks any day of the year between 10 a.m. and midnight here in Georgia. Some fun eh?
Blow this up to a planetary scale and you’ve got modern industrial civilization. There are lots of things we as a society shouldn’t do, but we do anyway. We can “afford” these things financially, but they are ultimately self-destructive. The true cost of doing these things isn’t monetary. It’s not running out of money that’s going to bring about our end but running out of Earth. We are surrounded by the ghostly, quiet footsteps of a billion Dodos (and Auks, and Moa…) coming home to roost.