{"id":3137,"date":"2024-12-11T08:30:50","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T13:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/?p=3137"},"modified":"2024-12-11T08:30:50","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T13:30:50","slug":"moco-executive-marc-elrich-to-children-santa-doesnt-visit-multi-family-buildings-without-chimneys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/11\/moco-executive-marc-elrich-to-children-santa-doesnt-visit-multi-family-buildings-without-chimneys\/","title":{"rendered":"MoCo Executive Marc Elrich To Children: Santa Doesn’t Visit Multi-Family Buildings Without Chimneys"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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ROCKVILLE, MD – In his weekly political rant delivered via the Alert Montgomery system, County Executive Marc Elrich shattered young hearts and holiday cheer with some “cold, hard truth”: Santa simply can\u2019t deliver presents to apartments, condos, or townhomes without chimneys.

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“Look, if you want Santa to come, I suggest talking to your parents about moving to a single-family home,” wrote Elrich on the county’s text notification system, which is intended for critical county business and emergency news updates and apparently also for personal political gripes. “Apartments? Sorry, he\u2019s got no time to fumble with a lobby directory or deal with metered street parking.”

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The announcement comes on the heels of heated debates over the county\u2019s Attainable Housing Strategies initiative, where Elrich has fiercely opposed multi-family developments in favor of preserving single-family suburban neighborhoods. When asked if the county-sponsored text message was an expression of his personal housing agenda, Elrich laughed. \u201cIt\u2019s not politics; it\u2019s logistics! Everyone knows Santa prefers a clear line for chimney access and minimum off-street parking requirements for nine reindeer and a sleigh.\u201d

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Elrich\u2019s remarks were quickly criticized as an attack on renters and proponents of affordable housing, but the County Executive doubled down. \u201cEven Santa\u2019s village proves that single-family housing is superior,\u201d Elrich argued. \u201cThe elves live in charming, detached gingerbread homes. They\u2019re not crammed into some cookie-cutter high-rise! And it’s so cold in the North Pole that rents have been frozen for centuries.\u201d

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Meanwhile, kids from apartment buildings were left devastated. \u201cDoes Santa even know where I live?\u201d asked one tearful child from a Bethesda high-rise. \u201cWill Santa find the milk and cookies I left for him on my balcony?\u201d

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Parents were also fuming. \u201cI\u2019ve got a condo in Downtown Silver Spring,\u201d said local parent Charity Case. \u201cI already feel bad enough about the HOA fees\u2014now I have to explain to my kid that Santa skips us because of zoning regulations?\u201d

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At press time, Elrich clarified his comments, saying Santa would consider \u201cpilot programs\u201d to deliver to townhomes and duplexes if Montgomery County instituted a strict workshop labor audit and the elves unionized by next Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ROCKVILLE, MD – In his weekly political rant delivered via the Alert Montgomery system, County Executive Marc Elrich shattered young hearts and holiday cheer with some “cold, hard truth”: Santa simply can\u2019t deliver presents to apartments, condos, or townhomes without chimneys. “Look, if you want Santa to come, I suggest talking to your parents about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[400,403,1754,114,389,184,724,836,183,354,427,516,264,95,1735,1734,482,1329,1009,1251,1113,1101,551,24,970,1130,916,874,373,995,944,749,319,370,140,489,806,1136,1253,807,371,979,122,386,1224,340,141,1387,1789,490,617,537,1593,317,189,993,640,399,309,710,1351,943,405,638,130,1733,116,98,443,93,111,716,104,387,428,115],"class_list":["post-3137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-culture","tag-adu","tag-affordable-housing","tag-all-are-welcome-here","tag-amazon","tag-apartments","tag-bethesda","tag-bethesdafication","tag-build-more-housing","tag-chevy-chase","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-lights","tag-cnn","tag-co-op","tag-comedy","tag-community-vision-for-takoma","tag-cvt-takoma","tag-dc","tag-dc-historic-preservation","tag-dc-humor","tag-dc-jokes","tag-dc-metro-map","tag-dc-news","tag-dc-politics","tag-dc-satire","tag-dmv-news","tag-dmv-satire","tag-downtown-silver-spring","tag-east-silver-spring","tag-ebay","tag-election-2024","tag-elf-on-the-shelf","tag-elon-musk","tag-elrich","tag-facebook","tag-fake-news","tag-funny","tag-gaithersburg","tag-gentrification","tag-georgetown","tag-germantown","tag-gmail","tag-google-news","tag-historic-takoma","tag-housing","tag-housing-shortage","tag-hulu","tag-humor","tag-instagram","tag-joke","tag-jokes","tag-kensington","tag-local-news","tag-local-satire","tag-marc-elrich","tag-maryland","tag-maryland-news","tag-maryland-satire","tag-missing-middle","tag-moco","tag-moco-executive","tag-moco-news","tag-moco-planning","tag-moco-politics","tag-moco-satire","tag-montgomery-county","tag-montgomery-county-satire","tag-nimby","tag-political-satire","tag-santa-claus","tag-satire","tag-satirical-news","tag-takoma-satire","tag-takoma-torch","tag-urbanism","tag-xmas","tag-yimby","wpcat-12-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/takomatorch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/img_20241210_213921_344317764289795123955.jpg?fit=2000%2C1569&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPZSG-OB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3144,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3137\/revisions\/3144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/takomatorch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}