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This is horrible and obnoxious tree trimming. Bad for the trees, bad for urban tree canopy, bad for urban heat management, bad for carbon sequestration, and done as an insult to labor.
The city should fine the fuck out of NBCUniversal for the full cost of replacing those trees. Those are not healthy trees.
They did issue a fine of a whopping $250.
Its amazing how fines for businesses are still at 1950s levels but individual (none rich folk) fines have kept up with inflation since the 80s.
It's almost like corporations and the wealthy have outsized control over politics.
Fines are literally only for poor people. They've done studies on it. Shit is crazy.
To be honest I thought tree law was going to be more punitive
I asked our AI overlords for an appropriate punishment:
The company executives have to spend the weekend acting as city gardeners, complete with typical gardening attire, tending to the local parks and trees - ensuring the community that they're committed to their "root-level" duties.
Jesus. That doesn't even cover one tree, not to mention labor. Even if they were fined per tree.
Where as I don't disagree with the timing being retaliatory, my parents have similar trees and my father had me do that just before he passed away. I was convinced I was killing the trees and turns out their canopy is larger than ever now, so it might not be terrible for trees, but still timing is bullshit.
I'm not an arborist and we don't have those type of tree where I live, but I have worked in landscaping before. My understanding any substantial trimming like that I've done in the past should never be done in the hottest part of the year because the tree will have trouble retaining water.
That's the main thing. Pollard your trees when they're in winter dormancy, not mid summer while they're actually using leaves to respirate
This looks more like tipping than pollarding to me. If it’s supposed to be pollarding whoever’s doing it is shit at it. Tipping is harmful to trees, and based on the photos of the tree prior to it being cut it looks like it may have been tipped once in the year already (likely why they weren’t issued a permit by the city and cut it illegally).
The Washington Post talked to the studio and the city this week and established some important key points.
NBCUniversal acknowledged they trimmed the trees, but they claim they trim these trees annually and it just happened to coincide with the strike:
A spokesperson for NBCUniversal confirmed to The Post that the company had pruned the trees. Universal’s confirmation was first reported by Deadline.
“We understand that the safety tree trimming of the Ficus trees we did on Barham Blvd. has created unintended challenges for demonstrators,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “That was not our intention.”
NBCUniversal is working to offer picketers shade coverage, pop-up tents and water, according to the spokesperson. The company has maintained the trees for years and prunes them annually in partnership with arborists for safety ahead of the “high-wind season,” the spokesperson said.
The city confirmed the trees are supposed to be managed by the city, the studio did not have a permit to trim them for the city, and that no permits had been issued to trim those trees in the last three years:
L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia said in a tweet Tuesday evening that his office is investigating the trimmings. The pruned trees are managed by the city, though businesses can obtain permits to trim trees from the city’s Bureau of Street Services, Mejia said. He added that they should be trimmed every five years.
On Wednesday morning, Mejia said the city had not issued permits for the ficus trees to be trimmed and had not issued any tree trimming permits for the location over the last three years.
The NBCUniversal spokesperson declined to comment on the controller’s statement.
So… one of them is lying.
Gosh, I wonder which one it could be…
They were fined... $250.
That'll show em! 😔
Yes clearly a normal trim. I also butcher my trees annually. Fucking corpo dicks. /s
The sad thing is how many Americans are brainwashed into immediately siding with corporations and demonizing the workers in any labor dispute. Fucking gross.
You know, I saw the story about the actors strike the day after it started on the NBC national news. It was about two minutes of the resporter telling the audience which shows they were going to be missing out on, like the next season of The Handmaid's Tale. It was so fucking blatantly one sided, to the point of just lying by omission. I'm not even sure they mentioned the AI issue. Of course no rational person should trust a TV network to give them unbiased, rational reporting about a fucking actors strike, but that's exactly where the average person is going to learn about it. And that's all that will come to mind - "oh no, my shows might take longer to come out."
I didn't really care about it at first. My thought was, hollywood's writing has been such complete utter dogshit lately, I literally can't remember the last time I walked out of a movie blown away by something new. (Dune was exceptional, Maverick was good, but those are books and sequels so not OC. Can't think of much else...)
Then I learned about fan baiting and how hollywood is actually purposefully trashing beloved franchises just to piss off fans, save money on writing, and essentially prep us for their transition to full AI writing and soon acting. For the last decade I've been mistaking their dogshit for out of touch but well intentioned corporate bufoonery. Now I realize it's just part of their large scale evil plan to stay profitable in a world where hollywood and big budget productions are becoming obsolete and irrelevant.
So I'm on the writers side, but good luck to them, I don't think they're going to win this one.
Taking away a tree's photosynthesis organs in the middle of summer when they're supposed to be storing nutrients for winter is also really good for the tree I'm sure.
How much you want to bet they took those cuttings and threw them in the landfill?
The sad thing is how many Americans are brainwashed into immediately siding with corporations and demonizing the workers
i.e., chronically clueless about who's actually dividing and conquering them.
Yeah. There was a guy I used to work with who would always complain if we heard workers were striking. "Why are they complaining about the conditions? If they didn't want to work there they shouldn't have taken the job."
One of the more braindead takes I've ever heard on the topic.
Imagine what they would be doing to the actual strikers if they could still get away with it.
Well they used to hire union Buster's who where armed so I imagine something like that.
Universal was hit with a whopping $250 fine
Looks like it hasn't been pruned like that before going back to 2007.
3800 Barham Blvd
Idk if there's any connection, but it is weird that the last writer's strike was in late 2007.
I can live without any new Universal Studios movies.
I have friend who will acquire their goods on the high seas. Yearrrrrgh!
You know you have to trim boulevard trees so they don't grow too high to stop providing shade? Happens the world over
Well if this is actually recent, then it is definitely intentional. Trees are usually trimmed in early spring, cutting them back that much in the middle of summer puts a lot of stress on the trees and risks killing them.
(if memory serves) According to a podcast I listened to yesterday, they don't own the trees. They're public property trees. Trimming was not scheduled.
Yep. I heard they're actually being fined, sadly only for $250 because old city laws limit how much they can be fined.
If any of these trees dies, I hope Universal is on the hook for replacing it.
Yeah I saw this and while I'm not a tree management expert I'm like "they basically left no leaves on these poor things". With the insane heat we've been seeing, this can't be good.
Even if we ignore how awful of a trim job this is and the lack of permits, it would be done in the Winter for the safety of the tree.
They just happened to schedule the trimming during protests, couldn't do it next week, or the week after?
Wasn't done by the city. Universal is getting fined for this.
You know the city does that, right? The city did not give NBC Universal permission to trim these trees. NBC Universal did it anyway and lied about doing it themselves every year. They very clearly should not be responsible for doing it since you do not do this in the middle of summer.
This is not pollarding, but it looks superficially similar.
Could someone explain this to me? Why would this harm the strikers?
No shade
Wouldnt want people to have any protection from the sun when its hot out
It's a good strategy and works indoors too. For example, I know a bunch of financial auditors who basically go into businesses and annoy the shit out of them for a few weeks making sure there's no fraud going on. They say it's extremely common for them to get stuck in uncomfortable spare offices, it'll be small and cramped, too hot or too cold, they work late into nights and weekends and the client will intentionally make sure ac isn't on late, things like that. Also works at home for getting rid of company that overstayed their welcome.
Taking away the shade the tree leaves would've provided.
Go out and give the protestors some big ol' tent things.
Fucking assholes. Time to buy some E-Z Ups and line the sidewalk with them
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