July 11, 2007
Creeping Totalitarianism Department
Fight! For Your Right! To sleep.
John Kass breaks this shocking story about life in the city that banned foie gras:
Window washer Sam Hardison has been charged by City Hall with another crime of the century:
Falling asleep on a CTA train, with a cookbook in his lap. So the poor guy may have to pay City Hall a fine of up to $300 for sleeping dangerously. That's a lot of windows to wash for a nap on the CTA, where payrollers and political hacks have been napping for years, when they're not taking double pensions, golfing and goofing off.
Apparently, it's illegal to sleep in public in Chicago. I can understand that the City doesn't want bums sleeping all over the place, but this guy is a paying rider on the train. He worked hard all day and fell asleep on his ride home, and now the City wants to take several days' wages from him?
"I looked the officer right in the eye and said, 'You've got to be kidding. I have to go to court on this?' And he said, 'Yes, you do,'" Hardison, a West Sider, told us the other day about his June 5 ticket on the Red Line.
The officer's partner didn't like Hardison's attitude, which he says was shock and astonishment, not anger...
"And the other officer said, 'If you don't be quiet, we will take you to jail right now. We'll arrest you,'" Hardison said. "I let them write their citations. I felt that it was not right, but what can I do?"
He's getting free help from a lawyer...and all this publicity might help a bit too.
Update: The city backs down.
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Did you see the update? Case dismissed. =)
That's a delightful follow-up article by John Kass.
I slept on the subway every night on my way home from work when I lived in New York (and always automatically woke up just before my stop -- my body knew it was coming). Cops generally never bothered sleepers (unless you stretched out across the seats, or were sitting in your own urine or puke).