RC Blog

The Meaning of Immediately

posted by Tim Harris on Monday, March 15 at 7:57pm

Recent events have led me to consider anew the jesuitical hair from which the unholy existence of the “safety bubble” hangs.  This is, of course, the 15’ no-go zone that may one day extend omnidirectionally from any person engaged in a parking or ATM transaction.  When the safety bubble crosses paths with a solicitor, be it Larouchie, Save the Children canvasser, or Real Change vendor (because this legislation, remember, is not targeted at anyone, especially panhandlers, and applies across the board), their act of solicitation becomes — poof! — aggressive, with each instance punishable as a $50 civil infraction. 

Additionally, if the ask truly is “aggressive,” as opposed to this newly defined faux-aggressive, one could also be charged under the current aggressive panhandling statute, which remains in force as a misdemeanor that carries a $250 fine.

The safety bubble itself however, as previously belabored, delicately hangs from Section 2.A.4.f.iii

iii. immediately before or after conducting a transaction at an ATM or parking pay station, is handling in plain view any money, bank card, receipt, check or other document related to the transaction.

What is this “immediately?”  Is it, as Burgess and staff insist, some nebulous instantaneous event, over nearly as quickly as it began?  Or does it have legs?  How far do those legs extend?  Is it until said document is reasonably dispatched to its logical and “immediate” conclusion?  Seeing, as how part of the definition is “direct; without intermediary,” that would seem reasonable.  In a parking transaction, for example, one takes the ticket from the pay station and “immediately” affixes it to the curbside window of one’s vehicle.  Right?

Unsure, I turned to my appallingly underused Oxford Universal Dictionary (1955), which weighs in on the bathroom scale at 8.4 pounds.  The concluding example of medieval usage is a minor miracle of serendipity..

Immediately adv. (conj.)  ME. [orig. to render. L. immediate adv. (cf. prec. 6).]  1. In an immediate way; by direct agency; directly 2. With no person, thing, or distance intervening in time, space, order, or succession; closely; proximately; directly 1466 3. Without any delay, instantly ME. b. as conj. (ellipt. for immediately that). The moment that 1839.  1. Canow .. was immediatly vnder the dominion of the Tartars HAKLUYT. I, holden of the Crown 1647. 3. He bade me goe immeaditlye 1500.

Call me crazy, but the safety bubble here follows the transaction, or, more basically, the person, even when circumscribed to the “immediate” transaction.  So long as one is directly engaged in the transaction without interruption, the bubble exists.  Burgess says no, but the language says yes. 

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