MAMA Gump was a woman of the strong view that life is like a box of chocolates and you never know what you’re going to get.
However, our lean, mean Limerick councillor machines are from the school of thought that less is more and that we don’t need so many candy shops to be enticing us on the city’s streets.
Down with that type of thing, our politicians were heard hollering in Merchant’s Quay.
And who can blame them with all the Ferrero Rocher or a Cadbury selection boxes the festive season brings. Sick to the back teeth of them they are, out now to have the candy store on the corner run out of town before Easter and all its bunny-hopping confectionary truly takes hold of the good people of Limerick.
Next thing you know, our holier-than-thou local representatives will be asking poor auld Father Trendy to pray for the Treaty City’s choccy woccy obsessed population.
Fianna Fáil councillor Catherine Slattery has been praying through the knees for us corrupt Milk Tray snackers, hoping to save us from the candyman.
Does she not know that these purveyors of delicious treats are the music makers, the dreamers of dreams? Say his name three times and even the snozzberries will taste like snozzberries.
But no, Cllr Slattery was having none of it and questioned the Council at their last Metropolitan District meeting about probing the tempting wares in these city trading posts.
If I were a smoker, I would have been out for a fag after hearing such salacious scandal going on around our city. But, as it turned out, even a cheeky vape was out of the question.
Councillors want to come down hard on them too, and the mobile phone shops while we’re at it. The city centre will be a dustbowl at this rate!
Thankfully, management at Merchant’s Quay, partial to an Wispa, were having none of it.
The large number of vape, candy, and mobile phone shops in Limerick might have proved a concern for Cllr Slattery, but the Council executive made it known that they are not aware of any measures being taken as to what is being sold in such shops.
However, Limerick City and How’s Your Father’s Head of Trade, Brendan Troy, did note that the Rates Incentive Scheme for Vacant Properties excludes vape and mobile phone shops.
I tell you what, this lot would do well to remember that “invention is 93 per cent perspiration, 6 per cent electricity, 4 per cent evaporation, and 2 per cent butterscotch ripple.”
Ah, lads, it’s true — only smarties have the answer!
– Local Democracy Reporting Scheme