A Little Protection Never Hurts (or does it?)
One of my NWCO friends recently told me a story that made my blood boil. He told me of a conversation he had with an enforcement official working for a state regulatory board on the subject of performing bird control work on buildings. My friend, who is a bird control expert with many years experience, wanted to bid on a public works project to exclude pest birds from a state-owned facility, but thought he'd better check on the licensing requirements for the job before submitting his bid. So he phoned Sacramento and was shocked at the treatment he received. According to my friend, the Enforcement Officer threatened him with prosecution, a thousand dollar fine and possible jail time if he proceeded to bid on that bird control project without having a Branch 2, Structural Pest Control License. When I spoke to my friend, shortly after this conversation, I could sense the intimidation and fear in his voice. He had decided not to bid on that contract after all. Instead, he was thinking about finding a PCO no longer working under his Branch 2 license and adding him to his payroll in order to register his company and thus qualify for future structural bird control bids.
Later that evening, after I cooled off and had a chance to relax, I started recalling those old Eliot Ness, Untouchables programs I used to see on TV. All too often, the show featured a story of some hard-working guy trying to make a living in his little neighborhood shop. One day a couple of gangsters drop by to inform the guy he's working in a very dangerous environment, and that if he was smart, he'd get himself a little protection for his business. When the guy asked what they meant, he was told that "Carmine, his new business partner, would be coming in each day to provide all the protection he would need to survive in that neighborhood.
Moral of that story is: One way to survive in the structural neighborhood is to put a Branch 2 Pest Control Operator on your payroll. Nobody should bother you after that. You can pretend that the PCO is supervising you and teaching you how to exclude pigeons from a building ledge. Forget that the PCO lives in some other part of the state and never sees you. Nobody cares. Just play the game and keep your mouth shut. Funny story wasn't it? Unless you happen to be the hard-working guy forced to make regular protection payments into the protection racket.
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