[thatcat]

It's london not milwaukee... Of course every dumbass real estate developer wants to buy up the shitty bars and flip them, but then when all the culture is gone that effects everyone that already owns land there... So you have to ask for permit first, is that so unreasonable?

[niij]

So the government is supposed to dictate what "culture" is allowed. Why can't the owners decide that for themselves? If they don't want to run a bar what business does the government have forcing them to do so?

[toyg]

They weren’t forced to run a bar, they were forced to keep a historic structure up. It could have been turned into other commercial activities without any question.

[torstenvl]

> they were forced to keep a historic structure up

This is untrue. The building was never designated a historic structure. This action by the local government had nothing to do with Heritage England. It was solely a bizarre flex that shocks the conscience (and would be unconstitutional at least two different ways in the U.S.).

[toyg]

Did you even read the article you're so vehemently fighting on ideological grounds...?

> After being denied planning permission to convert it into 10 flats, and two days before English Heritage was due to recommend the pub be granted Grade-II listed status [...]

> "We had a suspicion before the demolition that they would do something, so we asked English Heritage to think about listing it. They took a plaster cast of every tile, they took pictures and documented everything."

The building was in the process of being designated as historic, a process whose outcomes are typically unofficially known weeks or months in advances. A date was set for the announcement. Demolishing it two days in advance of that was a complete dick move, if you excuse the technical term.

> would be unconstitutional at least two different ways in the U.S.

Good thing we are not in the US then!

[torstenvl]

I read every word. Did you? You keep claiming it was already a historic structure, and then linking to information saying it wasn't yet.

[toyg]

But it was clearly in the process of becoming so. Hence, they were not free to demolish it. Which is why they were forced to rebuild it. QED.

[thatcat]

Yea, as a representative for the community of people who live and pay taxes there, not the parasitic real estate devs that simply exploit the value of that locations culture.