Monday, February 06, 2017

DEAD CUSTOMERS USUALLY BAD FOR BUSINESS...BUT NOT ALWAYS

by Bob Walsh

Death is, in and of itself, not necessarily bad for businesses. If it was nobody would ever go to watch NASCAR. That being said, if the cars ended up in the stands killing spectators on a regular basis it might be bad for in-person attendance. (Or maybe not, you never know.)

The Lodi Parachute Center is a skydiving operation at a small airport north of Stockton immediately adjacent to Hwy 99. Over the years 13 of their clients have died in the course of pursuing their sport. There are federal regulations about how these places are supposed to operate but pretty much zero in the way of state regs, which is odd in California where pretty much every facet of human life has some sort of regulation attached to it.

Our local Democrat-Socialist assemblyperson, Susan Eggman, has just introduced AB295. If passed into law this would hold the operator of the business liable in state court if they did not comply with federal regulations. For some reason not fully understood the feds have, on at least two occasions, proposed very substantial fines against the Center relating to aircraft operation and maintenance. The operator has declined to accept the actions or pay the fines and the feds have declined to pursue the matter legally. The proposed state law would allow persons damaged to pursue the matter in state courts.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Unless you are in the armed services and are ordered to, who would jump out of a perfectly sound airplane?