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Lynda
Advanced Member
1282 Posts |
Posted - 05/08/2008 : 08:53:49 AM
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justme
I couldn't agree with you more. If you are gonna make America your new home LEARN ENGLISH or GET OUT! Learn our Laws or GET OUT!
I am so tired or hearing "in our culture" well this isn't your culture, it is America, wanna stay? Learn English and our Laws or GET OUT! Don't look at our women in a suggested sort of way cause "in your country" it is a compliment, in this country that women will knock your block off! That is OUR CULTURE! It is called respect! If I see one more car parked illegally with the hazards on I am gonna scream!
Really don't mean to sound so harsh BUT I am so sick of this crap, I want my City back and I want it now. |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 05/08/2008 : 09:18:54 AM
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Just imagine what would happen to us if we went into a foreign country and broke their laws.
Well said, justme and Lynda. |
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EverettsPride
Advanced Member
1140 Posts |
Posted - 05/08/2008 : 11:07:52 AM
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I had an experience with a man who thought he could make sexual comments to my 12 year old daughter. I went to his door and explained to him and his wife that talking to a child like that is a crime in the US. I told him I know you marry children in your country, but acting like that here will get you jail time, or worse if my husband ever heard that he said another thing.
Sally |
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arthur
Senior Member
212 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2008 : 05:08:41 AM
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One man's gold is another's tank of gas
Record price and slow economy find many parting with jewelry
By Steven Rosenberg, Globe Staff | May 11, 2008
It's a Friday afternoon in Everett and Andrew Hagen steers his Ford F-150 truck into a parking lot and walks into the Gold N' Oldies jewelry store. For Hagen, it's been a slow work week, and the carpenter needs gas money for his truck. He reaches into his pocket and places on the counter a gold necklace with three small diamonds.
"It's an ex-girlfriend's chain," he tells Conrad Casarjian, the shop's owner.
Casarjian places a jeweler's loupe over his eye and examines the chain and diamonds. "It's 14-karat," Casarjian says, holding it up.
Hagen, who is 24 and lives in Melrose, says the record price of gold - more than $900 an ounce - and a tough economy have forced him to sell gold in the past. "I've paid rent with gold, especially this past winter. I had a lot of scrap chains I wasn't wearing," he says.
Casarjian hands Hagen $75 and the transaction is completed. Casarjian looks at the chain and small diamonds. When asked what he'll do with the necklace, Casarjian says he'll probably "scrap it."
In the lexicon of jewelry store and pawnshop owners, scrap has never been a more important word. For Casarjian, as much as 90 percent of gold he buys is sold to wholesale refineries. Those companies melt down the metal, remove its alloys, and resell it as pure gold.
As the economy has slowed, gold prices have risen. Last month, gold hit a record of more than $1,000 per ounce and is up more than 10 percent since the beginning of the year. Over the last 10 years, the price has tripled.
While economists have debated whether the country is in a recession, Casarjian and some other area jewelers and pawnshop owners have seen more and more customers who have fallen on hard times bringing in gold necklaces, chains, rings, and anklets. At pawnshops, customers trade their goods temporarily for money and have the option to pay the loan back or keep the cash.
"I'm seeing people I'd never see before," says Casarjian, who has owned his Everett shop for more than 20 years. "Tough economic times bring out a lot of desperate people. People will walk in and say 'I really don't want to do this,' but they do it because they have to raise some money to pay off their latest bill. People are hurting, they're broke."
With a sluggish economy and rising gas and food prices, the high price of gold could serve as a temporary boost to people who need to pay their bills, says Kenneth Ardon, an associate professor of economics at Salem State College.
"Without gold being as expensive, these families would be in more trouble," says Ardon. Still, while selling gold serves as a temporary payday, Ardon predicts more families will have to curtail their spending until the economy improves. "As long as gas prices and food prices rise, more and more families will come under strain in their budgets, so I think this is probably something that will continue."
In Chelsea, Sal Vaccaro says more people are choosing to sell their gold instead of pawning it. "We see a lot of older people who can't make it on what they're getting from Social Security," says Vaccaro, who owns The Gold Mine, a jewelry store and pawnshop on Broadway.
For Vaccaro, the gold chains, necklaces, earrings, and rings he buys all go to scrap. Much of it is outdated and from the '80s, but Vaccaro says with talk of recession, most people can't afford to buy gold jewelry anyway. "There's no point in holding onto it for resale because resale isn't any good," he says.
Paul Frazer, who owns Gold & Diamonds Etc., a Malden jewelry store and pawnshop, says the high price of gold has also been a boon for people who are financially solvent and want to fetch a high price for their old jewelry. "People are cashing in stuff that's been sitting, that they're not wearing," says Frazer.
But in Beverly, Frederick Ambrosini says the people who are selling their gold represent a growing group of recently unemployed workers who need money for food. "What I do see is an increase of people starting to panic," says Ambrosini, who has owned Fred's Jewelry Loan and Collect for 20 years.
While most people are selling, there are people who still choose to pawn their wares. On a sunny morning last week, Stanley Starling walked through Central Square in downtown Lynn carrying a gold chain, earrings, and a ring.
"Sometimes things get bad," he said, stepping inside the A & S Pawn and Used Jewelry store on Washington Street.
He placed the gold jewelry on the store's glass counter and pulled another gold ring off of a finger and added it to the pile.
Starling, who is 49 and originally from Chicago, needed money for his girlfriend, who was about to start a new job. "She needs transportation money to get to work," said Starling, who once worked as a shipping clerk but is now disabled.
Al Sherman, who owns the Lynn pawnshop, examined the jewelry. "There is some 10-karat and some 14-karat," he said.
On this day, Starling decided he wanted to get the gold jewelry back at some point and chose to pawn it.
Sherman handed him $60 and told him he would charge $6 - or 10 percent interest, as allowed by state law - a month.
"It'll last long enough until my girlfriend gets her first paycheck," said Starling, before leaving the store.
Steven Rosenberg can be reached at rosenberg@globe.com.
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2008 : 07:21:54 AM
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| SCHOOL SALE GOES TO ALDERMEN - Now it's up to the Board of Aldermen to decide whether the old Devens School should be sold to Chelsea-based Cassano Development Co., which intends to convert the building on Church Street to housing for people age 55 and over. The Common Council on Monday approved a request by Mayor Carlo DeMaria to sell the two-story building to Cassano for $950,000, which is $100,000 more than the building's appraised value in March 2007. The building was costing the city about $5,000 a month to maintain, not including the roughly $12,000 a month to heat it during the past winter, the mayor's office said. "The market the way it is, $950,000 seems like a good deal and we can't afford to maintain it," said Common Council president Lorrie Bruno. Anthony Cassano said that if the Board of Aldermen approves the sale, his company can start work in two to three months and would expect to complete the project within a year, converting the 1970s-era building into 22 to 25 units. The aldermen are scheduled to take up the issue tomorrow at 7 p.m. Neighbors of the closed school had asked the city to keep the building and turn it into a youth center, Bruno said. - Kay Lazar |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2008 : 08:44:23 AM
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| Can the BOA vote to approve the sale with an amendment that the Mayor needs to have one more neighborhood meeting before their approval takes place? Just a thought. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2008 : 08:59:40 AM
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Massdee,
At this point, I'm not sure what one more neighborhood meeting accomplishes. The cat's already out of the bag... |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2008 : 09:13:48 AM
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| I was just thinking as a general courtesy to the neighbors. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2008 : 09:21:59 AM
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| I'd think that they'd more consider it more of a slap in the face at this point. |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2008 : 09:27:24 AM
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| Oh well, I guess it will just have to stand as Mayor DeMaria not keeping his word to those residents in Ward 5. |
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EverettsPride
Advanced Member
1140 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2008 : 11:27:16 AM
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That is a really tough area for parking. I cannot believe the Mayor does not have a stipulation that there be at least one spot per unit. They are going to have to reconfigure the parking area and may even take more street spaces in order to be able to access the off street parking. All the school are overcrowded, and we are selling all the building that we may need one day for overflow.
Sally |
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italianmoe
Member
32 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2008 : 10:32:30 PM
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Just a few comments on a couple of postings. I agree, if you don't speak English, LEARN IT. My grandparents had to when they came here. Immigrants come here for a reason to make a better life, if that's what they want then they need to learn our ways. We shouldn't have to adapt to their ways. They left their country to come to ours, if they don't want to learn how we live, then go back. Sorry, about the venting, but it's disturbing that they are getting so many benefits as I struggle to put 2 kids through college.
The story about selling and buying of gold; that man needs to make sure he uses better safe guards that the items he is purchasing are not stolen. My home was broken into last year & I found my jewelry there. Times are tough, more people will be looking to sell things, but just as many will be stealing.
As far as Bob Shea, it's been more than a couple of years that people knew what he was about. I have been telling my friends that have boys to make sure they stay away from him. He's been at it at least 10 years, that's when my brother was warned about him. I wonder what took so long for something to finally be done.
The Devens school is another issue. I thought that any apartment building in the city had to have 2 parking spaces per unit. Anyone know for sure the ruling on that? If that's the case, then they are really going to be strapped for parking. I like the idea of a youth center, there is really nowhere for our city's youth to go if they are not old enough to drive to go places. I think it is really needed.
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arthur
Senior Member
212 Posts |
Posted - 05/12/2008 : 05:47:26 AM
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| well said Italian, but here is more food for thought, stabbing last nite on norwood st, are they turning on one another on that street |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 05/12/2008 : 07:13:33 AM
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Italian Moe seems to be exactly correct. Section 17 of the city's zoning ordinance calls for any multi-family dwelling to have two parking spaces per unit. There also appears to be some other limitations in that section of the ordinances that might be tough to fulfill given the size constraints of the lot. There is a link to the ordinance below so that you can check them out for yourself. It requires Adobe and can take a little while to come up so, please be a little bit patient. It will be up to the Zoning Board of Appeals to sort that all out. In addition, because the current "plan" calls for more than 8 parking spaces (and perhaps for other reasons as well), this proposal will also have to go before the Planning Board.
You must be logged in to see this link. |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 05/12/2008 : 08:21:45 AM
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| Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think M. Cardillo said at the CC meeting, state law takes over because it is senior housing. I can't remember who, but I thought someone said they would only need a half space per unit under state law. I have not checked that out. |
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BOSTON GLOBE
