GREEN@wharton.upenn.edu (Scott D. Green) (08/13/90)
Yesterday's {Philadelphia Inquirer} reported that Bell of PA, at the
request of Norristown (a western suburb of Phila.), will be removing
touch-tone public phones from drug areas and replacing them with
rotaries! They got the idea from that other backwater town (I forget
where) that we discussed a while back.
Norristown believes that if they can't call the beepers, they can't
score, the dealers will go out of business, and the drug problem will
be solved. (Quick, somebody call George Bush).
Some official (their tech consultant, no doubt) did mention that the
tone generators were readily available elsewhere, but (get this) the
possession of such an instrument could be construed as probable cause!
Bell said that they are happy to help, but they will be watching the
maintenance/vandalism rate, since rotaries are more easily vandalized.
(Especially by druggies who can't score because the Radio Shack is
closed). Bell said that if costs increased too much, they would have
to go back to touch-tones.
scott
[Moderator's Note: The fools!! Haven't they visited Radio Shack lately
and seen how the 'probable cause' abounds? Haven't they heard of
voice pagers with direct dialed seven digit numbers upon which coded
announcements can be recited, or tone only beepers with dual
addresses, each of which has its own seven digit (easily rotary)
dialed number making two pre-planned instructions possible? And
cellular phones can't be dialed from rotary? All they are doing is
making use of the phone more difficult for *everyone*. It stinks. PAT]