HANNES BOTHA is a menace to society.
It was cold and rainy as usual the other day, and there was Botha prancing about – jacketless – underneath a Very Large Umbrella.
You know the kind: an umbrella so big, it should have the word “Sabrett’s” plastered all over it; an umbrella more anti-social than Mayor Giuliani after he reads the latest Senate polls, and more of a sidewalk hazard than those guys handing out free passes to strip clubs. (They’re a scam, by the way.)
“I’m staying dry and that’s all I care about,” Botha said.
That much was obvious. As Botha drifted down the sidewalk, his megabrella, which resembled the roof of the Pontiac Silverdome, forced lesser mortals to leap into the wet gutter to avoid certain eye injury.
“I’d like to kill these people with the big umbrellas,” muttered one guy who did a Baryshnikov to avoid Botha’s mobile bus shelter. (His name was either Ross or Bruce, but I can’t be sure because my notebook was all soggy from conducting interviews in the rain.)
Ross or Bruce was making a vital point: During this rainy spring, people with Very Large Umbrellas have become as hated on the streets of New York as INS agents in Miami.
But owing to this column’s long-standing policy of non-violence (which, I admit, I waive when people push colleagues onto the subway before letting others off), I cannot condone Ross or Bruce’s vigilante justice.
In fact, I have a reasonable alternative to having the sidewalks run red with the blood of Very Large Umbrella-owners: The Umbrella Tax.
Just as higher bridge tolls during rush-hour discourage people from driving during peak periods, the Umbrella Tax would discourage people from clogging sidewalks and poking out innocent people’s eyes.
The Umbrella Tax is not a new idea. A few years ago, a media “colleague” of mine (yes, those are “ironic” quotes) proposed that officers from a new “Umbrella Violations Bureau” fan out across the city and write summons for oversized bumbershoots.
But the better solution is a simple, sliding-scale tax on the purchase price of Very Large Umbrellas.
Under my proposal, standard, pedestrian-correct, 24- to 32-inch umbrellas would face no tax, while anything from 33 inches to 60 inches would face a $1 surcharge.
The Very Large Umbrellas – such as Haas-Jordan’s 72-inch “UltraClassic,” which the company’s publicity material describes as “big enough for a foursome!” – would be hit with a $2 tax.
“I like the tax idea, but I would go further,” said Jon Orcutt of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. He proposed turning Midtown Manhattan into a special “Umbrella Tax District,” and then issuing E-ZPass-type transmitters to umbrella buyers.
Whenever the owner of a Very Large Umbrella drifted into the zone, he’d be hit with a small toll, which would then be put into a fund for eye-injury victims.
Santa Clara University economist Dan Klein, who favors market solutions to social problems, objected to my approach to these sidewalk SUVs.
“Your Umbrella Tax would be like the gas tax, which has not cut consumption of fuel, which was the goal,” Klein said.
Instead, Klein would “sell” the sidewalks of New York to private entrepreneurs. Those who found a way to lessen umbrella traffic could then charge pedestrians more for the privilege of walking on umbrella-free sidewalks.
But Klein admitted that his high-minded academic “solution” hadn’t been “tested” on the “mean” “streets” of Santa Clara.
“This is California, after all,” Klein said, throwing his entire economic worldview into question. “No one even walks around here.”