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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.
They were fined… $250.
That’ll show em! 😔
So… one of them is lying.
Gosh, I wonder which one it could be…
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.
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.
Every day that we live with AI the more I realize they should be replacing our politicians and executives of major corporations.
I dont care if I have to bow to R2D2 one day, that sounds better than the dystopian hell hole we have now.
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.
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
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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.
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?
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.
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.
