Criticism
Cordish instituted a dress code in June 2008 that has been called racist by critics. The dress code includes a ban on bandanas, work boots, ripped or baggy clothing, shorts that fall below the knees, athletic jerseys, and chains. City Hall questioned the Cordish company about the dress code, noting that the dress code seemed targeted towards black males and was inconsistently enforced. Councilwoman Melba Curls said her son was turned away from the district, while Counselwoman Beth Gottstein stated that "the message I keep getting is that Cordish is only available to some." David Cordish stated that the company was merely attempting to reduce gang related activity. Critics further accused Cordish of exhibiting racial bias when DJ Jazzy Jeff left the stage early during a performance. Kansas City Power & Light District President Jon D. Stephens stated that "It was entirely an issue of audio and sound."
Cordish has also been criticized for being ungrateful for opposing festival licensing for other Kansas City businesses, festival licensing that it was granted to allow patrons to possess alcohol on the streets in the district.
In addition, Cordish CEO David Cordish has been criticized for repeatedly requesting additional taxpayer subsidies and police for the district. The tone of the requests was labeled "petulant", "greedy", and "uninformed" as it was noted that the company had already received over $300 million in taxpayer subsidies yet failed to open on schedule. This caused City officials to criticize the company for its "secretiveness and slowness."
Read more about this topic: Kansas City Power & Light District
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“It is ... pathetic to observe the complete lack of imagination on the part of certain employers and men and women of the upper-income levels, equally devoid of experience, equally glib with their criticism ... directed against workers, labor leaders, and other villains and personal devils who are the objects of their dart-throwing. Who doesn’t know the wealthy woman who fulminates against the “idle” workers who just won’t get out and hunt jobs?”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men’s genius. By virtue of style, criticism can itself become literature. But usually this occurs only when the writer is acting as critic of his own work or as outrider to his own poetics, when the criticism of Coleridge is work in progress or that of T.S. Eliot propaganda.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)