Towns see crime, carousing surge amid gas boom - small-town police outmanned

This is from the AP in Pennsylvania.  To my jaded eyes it looks like opponents of O&G have found a new boogieman ... oil field workers.  When an area booms these (mostly redneck Southerner's come into an area and spread their money around buying liquor and (gasp) women!!)

 

Read here about what the Southern boys are doing up north and out west. Every rowdy worker comes from Louisiana.  I might be cynical, but this impresses me as a slam against the fracking industry because of it's workers. This is simply what happens in boom towns going back to the building of the pyramids where worker graffiti has been found.

 

(CONFESSION I used to be one of those young men who worked hard all week and got drunk all weekend) Perhaps I am being insensitive.  Local communities used to be GLAD to have our out of state money in their cash registrars. But, I am 60 now and the world has changed.

 

What the article does not mention is the local police might be more likely to ticket an out of state guy from Louisiana rather than ticket a local person who is most likely unemployed. My hunch is that they would ticket the out of stater first (some towns in LA used to be famous for screwing outsiders legally. It's a time honored way of small towns raising revenue) Perhaps police are enforcing laws on outsiders that they don't enforce on locals? Outsiders have money.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Drilling-boom-brings-surge-in-apf-299...


Stories abound about friction between locals and out-of-towners, whether road rage incidents or fights over women. Renee Daly, 27, of Montrose, Pa., said she knows of at least three marriages that ended when local women abandoned their husbands for gas-field workers.


It's "because of these Southern gentlemen, with their Southern accents, and the girls move in with these guys to take care of them," she said. "You get to spend their money, and they're gone two weeks at a time."


Wearing a T-shirt emblazoned "My Indian name is crawling drunk," Jeanette Pratt, a title searcher from Monroe, La., who travels the country for the gas industry and was on assignment recently in Montrose, said the difference is that the out-of-town rig workers "have a lot more money to party with" than the locals.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Drilling-boom-brings-surge-in-apf-299...

 

Tags: crime, jobs, pennsylvania, workers

Views: 649

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It's kinda like bi-coastal noveau riche people raised in the north traveling down to sleepy southern towns spending money, enjoying the locals and pretending to be lost. I'll bet a LOT of that is going on down there. Probably on the verge of being an epidemic I tell ya!

Agreed, it would be an exciting adventure! I just find it amusing how certain groups that oppose something find a vast array of angles to put a spin on it to accomplish their agenda! Let's see: Poor depressed area on the verge of an economic windfall, lots of out of town workers spending money on lodging, food, fuel, and entertainment. Let's blame them for our already meth induced crime problem. Sure, why not?!?

 

BTW, I have some new gadgets to bring down to corrupt the locals and cause the crime rate to skyrocket!

Big Daddy, the anti NG spin is what I was first concerned with.  Clearly it is an article whose purpose is to turn public opinion against O&G.

 

It's a classic "outsiders" article and you would not find a similar article about workers from Somalia or Mexico - or at least their better qualities would be praised.  This article is against NG and uses the old "OUTSIDERS!" mentally to achieve it's aims.

 

BTW, here is another article from the Quaker State of Brotherly Love ... it's about their need for TRAINED WORKERS.  Honestly, they should get Pennsylvania community colleges and trade schools to retraining coal workers for o&g. If they don't train their own citizens then they will have to import "outsiders" I believe that young people who train/study in this field will have worldwide opportunities in the future.

 

http://www.philly.com/philly/business/132833208.html

 

"Run - don't walk, run - to Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling areas if you are a welder or pipe fitter or engineer or a company that can deliver such people to companies already operating in the fields.

That was the message from natural gas industry panelists to other businesspeople convened by the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce on Friday at the Doubletree Hotel in Center City."

 

--- HANG

 

So ... Sesport2 .... you deny it's all part of The Conspiracy??

 

Actually, I do agree with Big Daddy that it is another way to discredit fracking and natural gas exploration by emphasizing the jobs going to people from outside of Penn.  You and I know that over the long term the majority of jobs will go to locals - but in the short term it's an easy angle to play up.

 

 

"Wearing a T-shirt emblazoned 'My Indian name is crawling drunk,'Jeanette Pratt, a title searcher from Monroe, La.,

 

I think I know this person :)

Or, looked at from another direction ... does anyone remember the Bossier Strip?  I saw Johnny and Edgar Winter at Sak's Boom Boom Room in the 1960's.  It was a magnet for high school kids back then.

 

There used to be a assist principal at Byrd in 1969 who would make the rounds to nearby bars.  The Carousel was big then and they always served us.  He used to let us drive back to Byrd.  Sadly, education has really gone downhill since then ...

 

NP:  Joe Stampley and the Uniques Live.  If you are old enough to remember The Uniques and John Fred you will love it - available on Amazon)

 

WHOA!  The Boom Boom Room at Sak's,the Carousel,  now that bring back some memories.... Go Go dancers at the Stork Club...  The mis-spent days to my youth...err, no, never heard of the Bossier Strip!  LOL

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