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NStar to waiters, small businesses: Suck it

NStar has declared the Blackout of 2012 a "normal" event and won't pay anybody for their losses due to it, the Globe reports. "People normally have their own insurance," the company CEO said.

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NStar ain't worried about the customers departing- no choice! And Thomas May isn't worried about the customers, he's worried about his shareholders. Shareholders don't care about the customers, unless they happen to also be customers- which probably some small percentage are. As customers, we can't vote May out like we can Menino, though the shareholders of NStar can. Which they would only do if NStar lost money, say by compensating customers harmed by blackouts.

So NStar and May have no incentive whatsoever to do well by their customers, and customers have no alternative in the "free market".
Muchos problemas. Very troubling.

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Over the last decade the feeder that goes down our street failed every year or two. The cable was beyond the end of its useful life, so when the spring melts came, the ground would get soaked and the cable would short.

The shorting was intermittent, varying the voltage wildly into our homes, damaging electronic equipment, until the shorting section of the cable finally failed—sometimes spectacularly with flames coming up three two four feet out of the ground.

Nstar would come, eventually, dig the street, replace just the failed section of cable, throw down some poor cold patch and then leave to wait for the next failure.

Simply replacing the entire cable (as they eventually had to do) would have eaten into their profits, so they waited as long as they could before doing the right thing.

Wanna bet exactly the same deferred capital improvements policy caused the fire and subsequent, long-duration outage in the Back Bay?

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Boston is an undeclared FEMA Disaster Zone.

August 23rd 2011 - Whole lotta shakin goin' on..

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Mumbles demands May compensate the city and rate holders. Yet refuses to waive parking violation fees his meters and traffic personnel continued to generate during a crisis. And you can bet that he's not setting up a fund for waiters and hourly workers with the cash from those same meters, which were the only thing functioning in that neighborhood for three days.

May, at $8m/year, tells us all: "Screw!" Again.

They both suck.

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Could have sworn I heard them report this on NECN last night, but can't find any reference to such an amnesty now. Adam, am I hallucinating?

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What the heck does parking illegally have to do with the blackout? WHy should you park for free because there's no electricity? Not sure how you connected the two aside form reading the rant in the herald.

The only think I've heard if being reimbursed is if they had to tow you in order to get equipment/cables in place.

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Why does Nstar owe anything to people who didn't have electricity? I've not read over my service agreement, but I'm pretty sure they don't have to guarantee service. Even when electricity is run to your home, you only pay for what you use. No electricity used that month, then you get a very small, almost nothing bill. Lots of electricity used that month, then big bill for lots of money. If these businesses who all lost electricity get billed for the days they were shutoff, then I see reason for extreme fury, chances are they won't be billed since they used virtually no electricity.

I worked in a restaurant a long time ago, and don't know how modern restaurant kitchens work. The ones I worked in used gas to fire all of the cooking equipment. It's also possible to process transactions using a calculator, and cash. I'm wondering why some places weren't able to stay open if they were only selling merchandise, and cooking foods which don't spoil as a result of not being refrigerated. The restaurant I worked at did lose power one night, and we ended up putting candles at the tables for people to see what they were doing. While it is a bit more of a fire hazard, it did make the whole crew pay more attention to what they were doing.

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There's a number of reasons why it's no longer legal to keep a business open without electricity. Temperature sensors for food safety, water heaters for hand-washing and sterilization, foot-candles to illuminate an area of public assembly and exhaust fans for grills and ranges.

Were you one of the original servers at the Warren?

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Do you know how those huge fans that vent the kitchen work?

Do you know that carbon monoxide is a byproduct of incomplete combustion?

Do you know that city codes mandate certain air flow rates out of habitable space?

Do you know that the hot water heater starts and stops on electric relays?

Do you know that hot water needs to reach a minimum temperature according to the health code to work in the sanitizer (2 minute dishwasher)?

You can't run a restaurant up to code in this city without power.

As for the merchandisers, opening your doors without the security cameras, induction loop theft detection, etc., that are the backbone of preventing shoplifting, is inviting a greater loss through stolen merchandise than lost profit.

I'm just happy no one threw any bricks through any windows.

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They make all kinds of food without electricity.

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Outside, where they don't need vent fans. And then they sell it on paper plates. And they do it during the day, when it's sunny, or at night, under street lights.

Were you in the neighborhood that was blacked out? I think you're misunderestimating the gravity of the situation...

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They have battery-powered fridges (or coolers with battery thermometers). Even Farmers' Market vendors (the meats and fish guys) have coolers with battery thermometers. The battery-powered ones can have alarms that you set to go off when they, say, go above the safe-to-keep temperature.

You can't have alarmed temperature control without electricity. Inspectional Services was out checking the affected restaurants for compliance. At least one restaurant donated its entire meat inventory to an out-of-town zoo.

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yeah? where were they? could have used some food in a convenient location.

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I worked in a restaurant a long time ago, and don't know how modern restaurant kitchens work. The ones I worked in used gas to fire all of the cooking equipment. It's also possible to process transactions using a calculator, and cash. I'm wondering why some places weren't able to stay open if they were only selling merchandise, and cooking foods which don't spoil as a result of not being refrigerated. The restaurant I worked at did lose power one night, and we ended up putting candles at the tables for people to see what they were doing. While it is a bit more of a fire hazard, it did make the whole crew pay more attention to what they were doing.

I don't know how far back you worked in restaurants, but for at least the last hundred years it's been common practice to refrigerate meat, chicken, fish and dairy products.

For the last at least the last 3 decades an overwhelming majority of restaurant business is paid with either credit cards or debit cards. At the same time, the typical consumer carries much less cash in his/her wallet expecting to be able to pay electronically.

What meals exactly that area made from non-perishable food products
would you imagine that you could serve - Dinty Moore beef stew, canned beans?

Candle light is nice on tables - as an aesthetic only. Using them to light a working kitchen and other parts of the back of the house is another matter.

This romantic notion may be a good adaptation for an hour or two, going beyond that it's a lawsuit waiting to happen. Frankly it reminds me of the fantasy world that libertarians live in where they fantasize about using an 18th century economic system to improve a modern economy.

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Other parts, well, not so much. How do you think meats where carried on ships back in the day? Little hint, there wasn't a fridge anywhere in sight. Meats were salted, pickled, and dried. There's a whole book devoted to the subject, pretty good read too:
http://www.amazon.com/Trading-Tastes-Commodity-Cul...

The credit card industry hasn't always relied on a direct connection to a central server. Merchants did use imprinters, and I still see them used occasionally here in Boston. If someone really wants to verify funds, there are usually numbers they can call. The areas I was in also still had cell service this past week, which means it was still possible to use wireless credit card processing. I've also seen this done at various trades shows. Sugar Heaven on Boylston lost power at their Newbury location once. Their employees found a way to still process credit card transactions, and did take cash. Now those are employees I'd want working for me.

The list of foods which don't require refrigeration is a long list. Most vegetables are ok without being kept cold. Notice all those greens and such at the grocery store? Yeah, all of that stuff, which includes potatoes, peppers, squashes, onions. There is also pasta, it just needs to be kept dry. It's also not hard to store tomatoes without a fridge. Right there, you can make pasta with tomatoes.

The only real issue I see here is where someone else mentioned the fume hoods. The Place I worked at had lots of doors, and an open kitchen. So not having fumes wasn't an issue for us.

My point is, if people want to be successful, they'll find a way to regardless of the situation. If people just take it like a turtle its back..well...

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You're missing the point that the law dictates the conditions around which a business can be open, not entrepreneurial spirit.

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Oh, I see. Since it obviously worked for you Way Back When, it should obviously still be working for everybody else now.

Well, then! Let's just hop in our handy dandy time machines and go back before the blackout and have all the restaurants change their ways, so they won't lose revenue from two of the busier nights of the week when unexpected circumstances cause a blackout.

SOBLEM PROLVED!

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Can we go back to a time when utilities were properly regulated and when a portion of the rates we paid for power went back into the system rather than the bloated salaries of some CEO who obviously doesn't give a shit?

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Some kind of commie socialist? Don't you know that the free market is always more efficient than government at delivering goods and services? Always. 100.00% of the time. I know this because a real smart libertarian told me.

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...the idea of staying open is wildly out-of-touch with reality.

Basic building code and safety/fire regulations prohibit occupancy of businesses without power. Even residential properties would be deemed unfit if the power outage was not temporary. Modern society requires things like sufficient lighting, active fire safety equipment (i.e. hard-wired detectors, strobes, illuminated fire exit signs), functioning HVAC, etc etc before allowing someone to invite people into a building. Hot water and cooking equipment are required even in (habitable) residences; if fired with gas the systems and safety equipment that allow indoor combustion use electricity.

In conrast, pushcarts and food trucks are designed to be off the elec/water grid for short periods,and fall under completely different regulations.

Restaurants (and many businesses/residences for that matter) that normally rely on electricity simply can not legally open without electricity. It is these regulations that keep the clueless from dying in fires, CO poisoning, or falling down dark stairwells.

Yes - things used to be simpler in the good ol days; see also: Coconut Grove. Even The Station fire was an example of what happens when clueless people who don't understand or ignore fire code/safety invite people indoors.

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I was hoping to still make my reservation time on Wednesday at the Capital Grille for their dry-aged jerky and pickled scrod "surf & turf" special that night, but alas they were closed instead.

Also, I'm sure it's simple to completely redraft your menu to pasta and salad for one night? Two nights? Three nights?

I mean, it's totally worth it to do something completely outside your oeuvre when nobody's going to be coming to your dead, pitch-black street to see if you're even open given that the power is out for an indeterminate amount of time...all just to try and recapture a pittance of your normal sales, right?

Get bent.

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I've been listening to the right belittle President Obama for trying to embrace green energy. Too bad none of those idiots live in the Back Bay. Just another example of how we all pay for our aging, seemingly ignored infrastructure. There are more important things to pay for!

Like throwing women and the sick back into the Dark Ages!

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Green energy? You mean like electricity that only flows when the wind blows, or the sun shines? Yeah, that would be much better.

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It's not like Copley and the rest of Back Bay funnel winds capable of sustaining modern turbines like 24/7 or anything, right? Or that excess solar energy generated during the day (even when cloudy) can't be sent to some kind of collection of electrochemical storage units...we could call them "batteries" if the word isn't taken yet...that would be accessible during the night when the sun isn't shining!

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Fly wheels.

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I immediately thought of flywheels as well, but that brought back bad memories of losing my shirt on shares of Beacon Power - but never fear, at least the government is getting some of its money back.

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Only saving grace to my Beacon shares is that I didn't buy them, but got them when it spun off from Satcon. Of course, given that they seem to be headed to penny stock territory....

Oi. :)

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once again so well represented. You really think coal, Natural gas and oil are going to be around forever? Take a ride to Germany once and see the solar homes that still have power when the sun is not out sometime, Fox News watcher!

From GlobalIssues.org;

"Germany is capable of producing as much solar energy as the rest of the world together. But now the German government is proposing dramatic cuts in subsidies for solar panels. They say consumer demand is so high it can no longer support the technology."

Gee, why doesn't that happen here, I wonder?

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Failure to properly maintain a critical link in the electrical infrastructure along with failure to provide reasonable back-up redundancies in the event of the critical link fails is considered a "normal event"? I wonder how long I would last at my job if I used such an excuse when I made mistakes.

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It seems that as the utility companies grow larger their responsiveness to customers decreases. The impending merger of NStar and Northeast Utilities will only worsen the problem. The executives of these companies are not saints who smile lovingly upon the people who depend on them. They merely are slaves to the lust for control and wealth that is purpose of monopolized economics.

A company that is a cash cow can afford to provide top notch services by maintaining equipment, using backup designs that prevent the destruction of primary and backup equipment as well as simpler things such as providing customer service beyond 5:00 (electricity is a 24 hour service - the company should provide 24 hour responsiveness beyond emergencies).

My experience with NStar does not leave me hopeful. I signed up for their energy saving pilot program. But the equipment they provided was poorly designed and their agreement to charge rates that are part of the pilot was never honored. Several attempts asking their billing folks to correct this resulted in plenty of "we will fix it" commitments followed by inaction every time.

What message do I hear from the electric company: to paraphrase
Ernestine channeled by the Ms. Tomlin, "We don't care; we don't have to. We're the electric company."

Monopolies are bad. Whether as a telephone company, electric company, cable, internet or gas company.

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Because honestly, if the transformer that blew was on the hotel's property or was maintained by some other entity other than Nstar, that's where the case is going to need to be made. If it was not Nstar who owned or maintained the transformer, then well, time for the business owners(and anyone else) who feel put out by the outage to knock on the proper door.

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The news reports I've read said that the transformer has been there since about 1972. The Back Bay Hilton opened in the 1980s.

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All NStar. The Hilton was invoked as a landmark only.

NStar has capitulated and will open a customer service table at the BPL, btw.

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There are several independent small restaurants who are hurting over the loss of business. Yet the attitude of some is 'let them eat cake!' Just because it's the Back Bay it's fine that they should suffer with no accountability from NSTAR? Not everyone who lives and/or works in this neighborhood has a silver spoon stuck up their ass. If this happened in say JP or Roslindale or West Roxbury I'm sure the reaction toward local business would be more sympathetic.

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He seems pretty quiet all of a sudden.

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