Changing Light and Bad Business

I am writing this on what is officially the first day of fall – the autumnal equinox. Today, night-time and day-time are the same length. From here on out in the Northern hemisphere, the days will grow shorter and the nights longer until we work our way around to the winter solstice in late December. Fall is my favorite season here in Chico – while the days are still nice and warm, the evening temperatures drop way down and cool everything off. The leaves will start to turn color soon and eventually the rain will come down. We’ll be able to burn backyard fires in our outdoor fireplace, and the new woodstove will be used to warm the house. My favorite element of fall though is the changing light quality. I moved here about a decade ago from Southern California, where the light quality is so consistent year round that the motion picture industry established its home-base there during the first half of the 20^th century. Here, between ten and fifteen degrees longitude further north than that flat-lit fantasy-land, the curvature of the Earth and the path of the Sun combine to give us a wonderfully saturated light quality. Normally whitish porch lights take on a glowing orange luster. The early evening’s sky blends from brilliant blue to purple to deep, star-speckled, blue-black.

It was this light quality that inspired me to pick up painting again a few years back; it is undeniably inspiring. When we eventually get a little more moisture in the air, the fogs will settle into the valley, and with them another entirely unique quality of light will make its appearance.

The Black Cat Bazaar

Speaking of painting, arts, inspiration; the Black Cat Bazaar will be happening this Sunday October 4^th from 3 p.m. until 9 p.m. The bazaar will feature a bevy of local artists, craftspeople, and performers selling their wares and sharing their talents. The event is being held in a newly refurbished adjunct of Mim’s Bakery on Humboldt Avenue and is advertised as follows:

“This event will promote creativity and fun! It is in celebration of our 20th year in business. The proceeds will go to the Butte Humane society and the craft vendors themselves!”

In the interest of full disclosure, Yours Truly will be behind a booth there selling a variety of different metal-works, paintings, and unique plantings put together by the illustrious indie-rock icon turned horticulturalist, my lovely wife Trish Howard. Stop by and say hello.

Continuing Local Attacks on Small Business

In the North State’s continued crack-down on small businesses bar doormen are the latest targets. This has been an on-going campaign that started with screen printers and garment manufacturers and has gone on to assail auto detailers, and now, apparently, local bars. The state employees have been raiding businesses and looking for whatever obscure, ticky-tacky violations they can find in order to levy fines on the typically unsuspecting business owners.

This sincerely gripes me. Chico has a small business economy, and anyone who has ever run a small business understands that it is a genuine, constant struggle. As a result of these fines, several businesses have decided to shut their doors. The short-term interest of generating revenue by levying fines leads to the long term detriment of loss of sales tax revenue and loss of jobs. It’s just as dumb as it could get and I have serious problems with the people who are making these decisions. It seems to me we are suffering through an economic period in which the state ought to be helping businesses to keep their doors open and keep people employed. Instead it seems to be us versus them.

I have long thought that Chico is a great place to start a small business. A number of truly innovative businesses have been formed in this fertile, inspiring oasis. This free weekly publication you are flipping through is just one example. Most of us make our livings working for a small business.

I want to believe that Chico is a great place to start a small business – but they certainly aren’t making it any easier by allowing these regulators to come in and shut business down for petty violations that oftentimes the business owners didn’t even understand.

There is a misguided way of thinking out there – the idea that regulations will help to rein in big business. Big business isn’t bothered by regulations. Big business has a whole floor of lawyers whose entire livelihood comes from filing injunctions and keeping regulators at bay. The regulations hurt the little guys – the business owners who are handling everything from taking orders, to making product, to making parole. They don’t have the time to also comb through the regulations.

It isn’t hard to understand why people have the impression that California is an unfriendly place to do business – not hard at all in the face of these cheap tactics coming from the state.

madbob@madbob.com