TROY, N.Y. -- “A protest of the city of Troy's use of code enforcement to censor a controversial art show at the Sanctuary of Independent Media up in Sixth Avenue in Troy,” said Joe Flanders.
That art exhibit featured a video game adapted by Wafaa Bilal in which players could kill President Bush. It was banned by RPI and was shown last Monday at the Sanctuary. Public Works Commissioner Bob Mirch doesn't like the game's message and gathered a group to protest its public showing.
“Anybody that looks at plagiarism and thinks it's okay, that looks at terrorism and thinks it's okay, I think they need some help,” Mirch said.
A day after the Mirch's protest, Code Enforcement shut down the Sanctuary, and as a result, the exhibit. Mayor Tutunjian says it has been in violation for more than a year and the city screwed up by not acting sooner because of the safety threats it presents. But both the Mayor and Mirch say, despite the timing, the shut down had nothing to do with the content of the exhibit and once improvements, including repairs to the front doors are made, the building will be open again.
Some people who live in Troy upset about the shutdown of the Sanctuary for Independent Media. They marched in front of the steps of City Hall yesterday to protest the decision. Our Ken Jubie has more from the Collar City and why protesters believe the shut down was due to censorship.
“There's no connection. It just happened that I voiced my opinion, exercised my freedom of speech, and obviously they didn't like that. And then when code enforcement did their job, they wanted to lash out and attack me,” Mirch said.
While Mirch says the exhibition had nothing to do with the building being shut down, people here aren't buying it.
“Bob Mirch when he says something like that is lying. He protested in front of the sanctuary one day and the next day he came and shut it down. He's a liar,” said Joe Lombardo.
They don't debate that the 108 year old building needs to be brought up to code, but say the city knows they're working on it.
“There's nothing different in terms of the building from one day to the next. The only thing that is different is that we had something there that the person who is the head of code enforcement didn't like,” said Steve Pierce, Sanctuary for Independent Media spokesperson.
“There's a pattern that we're seeing and I think it's worth investigating because enough people have come forward to say that they have a problem with the fact that they'll send an email to City Hall complaining about something and then a few days later Code Enforcement is at their residence,” said councilman Ken Zalewski.
While the question of code enforcement or censorship in this instance remains unanswered, the debate did reveal some pressing issues in Troy, including the apparent log jam and lack of consistency in code enforcement.