Reidsville City nitpickers quash the Haunted Warehouse

For the past few weeks our TV station has been hyping the first-ever Haunted Warehouse, around the corner and down the street from where we work here in Reidsville. I went inside where it was supposed to be a few days ago and... although I personally couldn't find anything very scary (guess they hadn't moved in the frightening props and such yet) I thought it was a great location for a Halloween haunted house-type attraction. Our station's general manager really had his heart set on doing this. Well, yesterday afternoon inspectors from the City of Reidsville came and effectively closed it down just a few short hours before it was supposed to start. Supposedly it wasn't "safe" enough... when the building in question is no less safe than any other in downtown Reidsville. Some have openly speculated that the timing of the condemnation is pretty suspect, that somebody up high in Reidsville city government "has it in" for the station. I don't know. But it's a shame that this happened. We were using the same building two weeks ago to tape some pro wrestling, and there was nothing wrong with doing that then.

I'll go ahead and state the obvious: Reidsville city government is, for the most part, bass-ackwards. I have never seen a municipal government so hell-bent on driving away small business and other industry. In the past month or so this town has already lost a good store, because its owner got sick and tired of the crazy sign ordinances that this town imposes. And at least one other retailer has outright said recently that it's going to be closing soon because of how the city government has driven away so much business. Now chalk up the Haunted Warehouse as one more casualty of the economic Bizarro-world that is Reidsville. And some of our "leaders" still dare to wonder how we can't attract any more industry.