Regulations vs Employment

[Crazed Rabbit]

A saga of a San Fran ice cream shop (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/business/smallbusiness/before-ice-cream-shop-can-open-citys-slow-churn.html?_r=2):


Ms. Pries said it took two years to open the restaurant, due largely to the city’s morass of permits, procedures and approvals required to start a small business. While waiting for permission to operate, she still had to pay rent and other costs, going deeper into debt each passing month without knowing for sure if she would ever be allowed to open.

“It’s just a huge risk,” she said, noting that the financing came from family and friends, not a bank. “At several points you wonder if you should just walk away and take the loss.”

Ms. Pries said she had to endure months of runaround and pay a lawyer to determine whether her location (a former grocery, vacant for years) was eligible to become a restaurant. There were permit fees of $20,000; a demand that she create a detailed map of all existing area businesses (the city didn’t have one); and an $11,000 charge just to turn on the water.

This is why regulations are bad; they grow like vines and suffocate businesses. They need to be kept tightly trimmed. I think it's to easy for bureaucracies to make new regulations. They should only be able to add new rules and regulations that have been approved by the legislature and not just by internal people in the bureaucracies.

A related video (produced by the actual SF planning department):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOreHYVTHGA&feature=youtu.be

CR

[Husar]

And if they let anyone open a restaurant and the first 500 customers get food poisoning, the people ask why noone is controlling this.

And if she draws customers away from existing restaurants, it won't necessarily create more jobs as the other restaurants will have to reduce their staff, unless everybody in the neighborhood has so much money lying around that they can easily afford to eat more often in restaurants.

I wouldn't even be surprised if whoever is behind all this legislation thought about creating a nice entry barrier to keep new competitors out.

Plus the people of San Francisco have a right to demand proper testing of newcomers so they don't lose any property value, just like these communities where you're thrown out if you don't have a perfect front lawn.

[PanzerJaeger]

But what can you honestly do about it at this point?

Change the organizational mindset. Change the leadership. Audit the bureaucracy. Understand why is costs so much money and takes so much time to establish a business in the community. Are those barriers based on true public safety concerns or other derivative organizational issues? The problem isn't the idea of public safety regulations, but the organizational misdirection, inefficiency, and corruption involved in writing and enforcing them.

[Strike For The South]

I feel like at some point, someone should've realized the insanity. 20,000$ to get the water turned to a building is quite possibly the height of stupidity

[Crazed Rabbit]

And if they let anyone open a restaurant and the first 500 customers get food poisoning, the people ask why noone is controlling this.

:stare:

What? Did the article or I say anything about food safety regulations? No, the article talked about waiting months and spending tens of thousands of dollars on permits? Why should one need a permit to open a business? Just make them notify the city when someone opens a restaurant, and send an inspector there soon after it opens.


And if she draws customers away from existing restaurants, it won't necessarily create more jobs as the other restaurants will have to reduce their staff, unless everybody in the neighborhood has so much money lying around that they can easily afford to eat more often in restaurants.

Or maybe people who didn't go out before will go to her shop, since there was nothing that served their needs before.


I wouldn't even be surprised if whoever is behind all this legislation thought about creating a nice entry barrier to keep new competitors out.

Plus the people of San Francisco have a right to demand proper testing of newcomers so they don't lose any property value, just like these communities where you're thrown out if you don't have a perfect front lawn.

I'm assuming the second part is a joke.

CR

[Sarmatian]

I feel like at some point, someone should've realized the insanity. 20,000$ to get the water turned to a building is quite possibly the height of stupidity

It's not that simple. Pipes can deliver only so much water at normal pressure. If you'ew opening a restaurant, you will be using much more water than a household or even a grocery store. It would be quite bad if 10 new businesses open in a neighbourhood and 25,000 people don't have enough water pressure to take a shower. There are a few ways to deal with that - have the taxpayers pay for it, have all 10 business pay for it equally, allow 9 businesses to open and charge 200,000 on the tenth or do nothing and have people throw a fit.

Charging 20,000 for each new business seems the most rational and fair solution.

[Tuuvi]

Small business entrepreneur: "Perhaps I should keep my job as a cater-waiter."

City Planner: "That's why we have these regulations. KNOW YOUR PLACE, PEASANT."

[Crazed Rabbit]

It's not that simple. Pipes can deliver only so much water at normal pressure. If you'ew opening a restaurant, you will be using much more water than a household or even a grocery store. It would be quite bad if 10 new businesses open in a neighbourhood and 25,000 people don't have enough water pressure to take a shower. There are a few ways to deal with that - have the taxpayers pay for it, have all 10 business pay for it equally, allow 9 businesses to open and charge 200,000 on the tenth or do nothing and have people throw a fit.

Charging 20,000 for each new business seems the most rational and fair solution.

I bet an industrial pump would've cost less than that. I am skeptical that it's for water pressure reasons anyway.

More examples of regulations:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/02/08/tech-startups-facing-unexpected-challenge-govt-regulations/

Could your favorite apps soon be banned in your city?

Can’t find a taxi? Uber allows you to hail a black car from a smartphone. The app uses GPS to display the location of drivers’ cars and how many minutes it will take them to pick you up. The driver calls when he arrives, and your phone pays automatically.
Uber has expanded from its base in San Francisco to other cities: New York, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, and DC. But sometimes, city governments are less than welcoming.
"They’re operating illegally, and we plan to take steps against them," D.C. Taxi Commissioner Ron Linton warned at a meeting earlier this month.
“What they’re trying to do is be both a taxi and a limousine,” Linton has said. “Under the way the law is written, it just can’t be done.”
This month, Linton conducted a sting operation. Using Uber's app to hail a car, Linton took it for a ride, and arranged for inspectors to greet it at the destination. The inspectors fined the driver $1,650 for various violations and impounded the car.
...
Roomorama ensures security by verifying the identities of the people using the site and allowing renters to rate places they've stayed at.
But there's one catch: Last May, New York State made it illegal for anyone to rent out an apartment for a time period of less than a month. Doing so could land you a fine of $800.
Supporters of the ban call such rental arrangements "illegal hotels" and say the Internet has compounded the problem.
"The Internet has made it easier than ever to advertise illegal hotels," New York state senator Liz Krueger said in testimony to the NYC Committee on Housing and Buildings.
Krueger has also introduced a bill that would raise the fine to a maximum of $25,000.
"This proliferation of illegal hotel operations has ... disrupted the lives of countless permanent residents ... and ruined many tourists' visits in New York," Krueger explained.
Roomorama.com CEO and founder Jia En Teo says that the ban goes too far.
“By slapping a law like this on, it is not allowing markets to run themselves efficiently. Having more options available for consumers is always a good thing,” she said.
Hotel industry groups -- which publicly support the ban -- are the real reason for the law, Teo said.
"It is the hotel lobby that has been pushing for these laws, so as to stifle the competition."


And more:
http://www.startribune.com/business/138904589.html


Death may not be proud, but it sure can be expensive.

Verlin Stoll doesn't think it has to be, and that has earned the baby-faced 27-year-old funeral home operator the enmity of Minnesota's biggest funeral home trade group.

Why, things are getting so nasty that the executive director of the Minnesota Funeral Directors Association recently labeled Stoll an "entrepreneurial dynamo."

It wasn't intended as a compliment.
...
Stoll's low-cost approach and low overhead -- he and his wife are the only employees -- helped Crescent Tide turn a profit within its first year. Now, he'd like to open another facility in St. Louis Park. To do so, he's leading a challenge to a Minnesota law that requires every funeral home to have a specially equipped embalming room.

Sounds logical enough, but here's the thing: Minnesota law does not require funeral directors to perform body preparation or embalming in those rooms. Most owners of multiple funeral homes transport bodies to a central location for those activities. Some even outsource their embalming services to licensed third-party firms -- also perfectly legal.

And then there's the fact that, in the Twin Cities, more than half of all bodies are cremated rather than buried. Funeral homes are not required to have a crematorium on their premises, and most don't. They transport the body to another facility for that service.

Stoll already has an embalming room in his St. Paul funeral home, which he estimates cost almost $30,000 to lease and furnish. Requiring him to build another one that he has no intention of using will either delay his expansion or force him to raise prices.

And more:
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120125/NEWS01/301250096/Cab-rivals-win-round-one-against-new-Nashville-regulation

The car service operators say the new regulations — which, among other things, require sedan and limo services to charge a $45 minimum fare, ban them from using leased or old vehicles and require that they dispatch only from a fixed place of business for prearranged appointments — are anti-competitive and unconstitutional.

Budget services charging as little as $20 or $25 a ride claim larger limo companies pushed the new regulations to push them out of business, while proponents say the ordinance passed by Metro Council in 2010 is needed to protect the public and eliminate “rogue” taxis.

U.S. District Judge Kevin H. Sharp denied a motion to dismiss the case Thursday, two days after the Metro Council indefinitely deferred a bill that would have overturned the disputed regulations and negated the lawsuit. The final outcome of the lawsuit could influence a broader national fight against regulations, common in many cities, that impose minimum fares or restrict the number of for-hire vehicles that can legally operate.

“Government has no business interfering with private business and enterprise,” said Syed Ali Bokhari, owner of Metro Livery Inc. and a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “What I did was I offered taxi prices and put people in luxury sedans. (Metro) didn’t leave any room for me to survive and operate my business.”
...
“They have sufficiently done so by alleging that the new rules stemming from the Ordinance serve no legitimate public health or safety purpose,” Sharp continued, “and by alleging that the Ordinance was enacted not to protect any such purpose, but rather to protect limousine companies and taxicab companies from competition.”
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120125/NEWS01/301250096/Cab-rivals-win-round-one-against-new-Nashville-regulation

And these are but a few snowflakes plucked from a blizzard, in terms of the pervasive intrusion of useless regulations into our lives.

CR

[Lemur]

This is the cover story of the Economist (http://www.economist.com/node/21547789) I got today.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Food trucks: (http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/02/food_truck_war_how_city_governments_are_trying_to_kill_them_with_dumb_regulations_.html?wpisrc=twitt er_socialflow)

A recent report on street vending for the Institute of Justice emphasizes that many anti-truck politicians don’t even bother with Monning’s pretext. An existing provision of the San Francisco municipal code, for example, states that any business may comment on an application for a new vending license and directs the city to “consider” whether the proposed operation is located within 300 feet of a business that sells the same type of food or merchandise. It would be as if Slate were allowed to complain that it should be illegal to launch a new website to compete with our offerings, and that government should take our complaint seriously.
San Francisco’s rule affects only the same kind of food, so if you’re selling pizza I can try to offer tacos. Across the bay in Oakland, a “vehicular food vendor” is enjoined from locating within 200 feet of any restaurant or deli. Chicago’s rule is like Oakland’s, while in Atlanta there’s a 1,500-foot exclusion zone in which a vendor cannot offer a similar product. These are just the most blatant forms of protectionism. San Jose’s law requiring a mobile vendor to stay at one location (or within 500 feet of that location) for no more than 15 minutes within any two hour period seems clearly designed to make truck-based businesses impractical.
...
But a basic rule of thumb seems to suggest itself: The fact that business owners would prefer not to face competition is not a valid regulatory purpose. A food truck is a kitchen and a vehicle and should need to follow the rules that generally apply to both things. But there’s no need for extra regulatory burdens over and above those. If you’re allowed to have a restaurant two blocks away from a school, there’s no reason to ban a food truck. If you’re allowed to park a van in a space somewhere, there’s no reason to ban parking a van that also happens to sell food.
Most of all, the fact that an existing business owner objects to the practices of a new business is a terrible reason to block a truck from operating. Space is scarce and rents are high in the centers of major American cities. If new competition can bring prices down, we’ll all be better off in the long run. Meanwhile purveyors of traditional restaurants will be challenged to deploy their unique assets—tables, chairs, a roof, walls—in ways that provide meaningful value to customers. Municipal authorities need to learn to welcome the explosion of innovation happening around them and stop trying to choke it off.

Greek Edition: (http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite2_1_21/02/2012_429208)

“An online store is more complicated than a regular store basically because of the way payments are carried out,” explained Fotis Antonopoulos, one of the co-founders of www.oliveshop.com, which sells olive oil-based products such as cosmetics, mostly to foreign markets.

“Most stores begin operating after receiving only the approval regarding their brand name, as the bureaucracy involved takes such a long time to complete that it is simply impossible to keep up with the operational costs, such as paying rent on obligatory headquarters, without making any sales,” said Antonopoulos.

Antonopoulos and his partners spent hours collecting papers from tax offices, the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the municipal service where the company is based, the health inspector’s office, the fire department and banks. At the health department, they were told that all the shareholders of the company would have to provide chest X-rays, and, in the most surreal demand of all, stool samples.

Once they climbed the crazy mountain of Greek bureaucracy and reached the summit, they faced the quagmire of the bank, where the issue of how to confirm the credit card details of customers ended in the bank demanding that the entire website be in Greek only, including the names of the products.

“They completely ignored us, however much we explained that our products are aimed at foreign markets and everything has to be written in English as well,” said Antonopoulos.

Eventually, Antonopoulos and his associates decided to use foreign banking systems like PayPal, and cut the Greek bank, with which they had been negotiating for three months, from the middle. “It’s their loss, not ours. We eventually solved the problem in just one day,” explained Antonopoulos.

Antonopoulos describes the massive difference between the treatment he and his partners received from the Greek authorities and the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA), whose approval Oliveshop.com needed in order to export its products to the USA.

“I contacted the FDA and they sent us an e-mail with directions immediately. I filled in an online form and was done in five minutes. We received the approval 24 hours after making our application.”

Gee, no wonder Greece is in such bad economic shape. They make American regulations look efficient.

EDIT: The Lacey Act and Gibson Guitars (http://reason.com/blog/2012/02/23/the-great-gibson-guitar-raid-months-late): Or, where the US Government knows what infringes on Foreign Country's Laws Better than those Foreign Countries.

CR

[Crazed Rabbit]

Double posting because this example deserves it's own post: (http://www.overcriminalized.com/CaseStudy/McNab-Imprison-by-Foreign-Laws.aspx)
McNab v. United States

It all began with a supposed anonymous fax to the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) on February 3, 1999. The mystery fax alleged that Honduran businessman David McNab had a shipment of “undersized (3 & 4oz) lobster tails” scheduled to arrive in Bayou La Batre, Alabama on February 5, 1999. The fax also said that the lobster should be packed in cardboard boxes, but was in fact packed in clear plastic bags.
Based on this strange, anonymous message, NMFS agents waited for McNab’s ship and captured it on arrival. With no explanation, the federal government held the entire ship for several weeks and then off-loaded and transported McNab’s 70,000 pounds of Caribbean spiny lobster to a government freezer in Florida. There the lobster tails languished for six months while NMFS agents searched Honduran regulations for some reason to keep the lobster meat and prosecute the importers and distributors.
After numerous phone calls, letters, and trips to Honduras, the NMFS focused on three provisions. The first details the processing and packaging of fish harvested in Honduran waters. This 1993 regulation, promulgated pursuant to a 1973 statute, included the mention of packaging in cardboard boxes. The second regulation prohibits harvesting any lobsters with tails shorter than 5.5 inches. This must have surprised the NMFS agents, since the market price lists published by NMFS include prices for two and three ounce Caribbean spiny lobsters from Honduras. A government expert acknowledged at trial that these little lobsters would all have tails shorter than 5.5 inches. The third Honduran provision prohibits destroying or harvesting “eggs, or the offspring of fish, chelonians or other aquatic species for profit.”
Six months after sending them to the cooler, NMFS agents finally began to inspect the locked-up lobster tails. Only about three percent of the lobster tails turned out to be less than 5.5 inches long. Just seven percent showed any evidence of having been egg-bearing lobsters. These small amounts belie the suggestion that McNab or his employees were intentionally harvesting young or egg-bearing lobsters. Nevertheless, prosecutors included these regulations as predicates for alleged violations of the Lacey Act.
...
Government prosecutors, not satisfied even with 35 tons of lobster, filed criminal charges against McNab. The also charged three American businesspeople who frequently purchased and distributed lobster tails from McNab. All charges against McNab and most charges against the others were predicated on the three Honduran regulations, applied through the Lacey Act. No charges were ever brought against the defendants in Honduras. The alleged Lacey Act violations served primarily to trigger more serious charges. If importing the lobster in bags instead of boxes was illegal, prosecutors reasoned, then planning to import it was criminal conspiracy, the actual importation was smuggling, and payments became felony money laundering.
At the District Court’s foreign law hearing, McNab presented copious evidence showing that the Honduran regulations at issue were invalid. The size restriction had never been signed by the President of Honduras, an absolute requirement for such a regulation under Honduran law. The Attorney General of Honduras supplied an opinion, confirming other testimony, that because the size restriction was not signed it could never have had the force of law.
McNab presented other witnesses, including a former Honduran Minister of Justice, who testified that the egg harvesting regulation was never intended to apply to animals that happened to bear eggs when caught. The prohibition against harvesting or destroying eggs for profit was meant to do just that, to prevent the harvesting of eggs themselves (turtle eggs in particular).
Government prosecutors somehow convinced the court to ignore McNab’s extensive evidence and instead accept the testimony of a single, mid-level Honduran bureaucrat, Liliana Paz. For reasons that remain unexplained, the “Secretary-General” of the Honduran Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock – an official whose primary duty is to be “an instrument of communication” and who has no expertise or authority to render legal opinions – boldly testified that all the regulations were valid and had the force of law.
Despite the obvious lack of criminal intent on the part of the defendants, as well as concerns about the validity of the Honduran regulations, all four businesspeople were convicted on a general verdict. In August 2001, McNab and two businessmen were each sentenced to eight years in prison. The fourth defendant, a businesswoman from New Jersey who resold seafood to restaurants like Red Lobster, was sentenced to two years in prison.
The government trumpeted the convictions in press releases that labeled McNab “the ringleader of a smuggling operation.” The reports mislead the public by suggesting that McNab was intentionally harvesting undersized and egg-bearing lobsters, never mentioning that these were a tiny portion of his catch. The government fails to note that the only reason for declaring the entire shipment illegal was that it was packed in bags, not boxes. In effect, the defendants were convicted of smuggling because they packed lobster in clear plastic bags instead of opaque cardboard boxes.
...
Several months after the end of the criminal trial, the Honduran Court formally held that the size limit was void and declared that it had never had the force of law.
McNab’s attorneys also discovered that the law authorizing the packaging regulations was repealed in 1995. Under Honduran law, a regulation is automatically repealed when the authorizing statute is repealed. Even the prosecution’s witness from the Honduran Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock admitted this in an affidavit. It also became clear that the egg-harvesting provision had been repealed in a way that, under Honduran law, operated retroactively.
McNab additionally filed a motion before the Honduran National Human Rights Commissioner challenging Ms. Paz’s testimony about Honduran law. The National Human Rights Commissioner, Dr. Leo Valladares, is an internationally respected constitutional lawyer and human rights advocate. His office in Honduras is charged with addressing complaints that government officials’ actions constitute “legal error.” Dr. Valladares issued a report, which the Minister of Agriculture signed, stating that Ms. Paz’s testimony constituted “an error of law.” The scholarly report found that the packaging regulation was repealed in 1995, the size restriction had “never had the force of law,” and that the egg-bearing provision had been retroactively repealed.
The government of Honduras, through its embassy, directed all of this information to the U.S. State Department, asking that they forward it directly to the Department of Justice. The Attorney General of Honduras also filed an amicus curiae brief with the 11th Circuit, providing this information and explaining that McNab and the other businesspeople had not violated any Honduran law. All of this was ignored by the Court of Appeals when they concluded that “finality” was, apparently, more important than justice.


Good God.

CR

[a completely inoffensive name]

The problem with food trucks is that by parking right outside a store, they essentially get the benefit of a great location but don't have to pay for it, while the store owners do. It is essentially camping on your property but legal because the road is technically public. Once again, a one sided story from anti-regulation hounds.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Who does it hurt? The consumer gets more options, and the store only loses customers if they provide an inferior product or less reasonable prices. Unconventional =/= Bad.It hurts store owners who pay for property that others are using for free. Your second statement just isn't true. The convenience of a truck right there compared to a typical brick and mortar store doesn't just make it about the product.The city is defending property rights but anti-gov people feel that even that is tyranny when it prevents someones right to make money.

[Strike For The South]

It's all about location hence the exceptions for different kinds of food. The owner has paid for that spot, the vendor has not, yet the vendor reaps terrtiary beneifits becuase of the location. Now if the store was able to charge the vendor that would be a different story


If those customers would rather buy things out of a truck than the store, what does that say for the store? Don't defend a business because they refuse to adapt, and don't stifle start-ups because they take an innovative and affordable approach

Food trucks and vendors have been around for ever there is certainly nothing new about them

[Crazed Rabbit]

The problem with food trucks is that by parking right outside a store, they essentially get the benefit of a great location but don't have to pay for it, while the store owners do. It is essentially camping on your property but legal because the road is technically public. Once again, a one sided story from anti-regulation hounds.

This is ridiculous. The food trucks have to pay for parking, and since that's all they use, that's all they have to pay for. The restaurants have no legal right to the road nor what happens on it. What you dismiss as a technicality is the most important aspect that undermines your whole argument.


It hurts store owners who pay for property that others are using for free.

The store owners Do. Not. Own. The. Road.

If the restauranteers don't like the situation they should respond by offering a better services to customers. If they can't then the government shouldn't get involved to protect them by regulating new businesses out of existence. Maybe most restaurants can't compete. So what? The government shouldn't protect dying industries.

CR

[a completely inoffensive name]

This is ridiculous. The food trucks have to pay for parking, and since that's all they use, that's all they have to pay for. The restaurants have no legal right to the road nor what happens on it. What you dismiss as a technicality is the most important aspect that undermines your whole argument.The owners are paying for location, that's why they pay so much for the land. The vendors are using public land in the same location, so they get same benefits but their only cost is parking because the land cost is subsidized for them AKA other people's taxes allow them (and everyone else) to be there.
The store owners Do. Not. Own. The. Road.If the restauranteers don't like the situation they should respond by offering a better services to customers. If they can't then the government shouldn't get involved to protect them by regulating new businesses out of existence. Maybe most restaurants can't compete. So what? The government shouldn't protect dying industries.And I don't technically own the oil under my neighbors property. But guess what happens when I build an oil rig on my property. From one of my favorite movies, "DRAAAAAINAGE!". I thought you had a minor in economics?All this talk of outcompeting a subsidized competitor is just silly.

[PanzerJaeger]

. And I don't technically own the oil under my neighbors property. But guess what happens when I build an oil rig on my property. From one of my favorite movies, "DRAAAAAINAGE!". I thought you had a minor in economics?All this talk of outcompeting a subsidized competitor is just silly.

Well I majored in business administration (:rolleyes:) and the fact that your oil comparison works is the problem. It implies that the product is a commodity that is similar enough across sources that the consumer cannot distinguish between those sources. If these businesses are producing a product and service mix that can be matched by a cart on the street then they are failing to justify their investment in the location. They should either differentiate their product to the point where it offers the consumer a value that the carts cannot match or drop the location and get a cart themselves. The brick and mortar locations and the carts should operate in symbiosis if they are both playing to their strengths. A storefront offers a merchant the opportunity to create a greater value for the consumer and thus charge a premium for that value. If they cannot create that value it is no one's fault but their own. Regulating away more efficient competing business models ultimately hurts consumers.

[Crazed Rabbit]

The owners are paying for location, that's why they pay so much for the land. The vendors are using public land in the same location, so they get same benefits but their only cost is parking because the land cost is subsidized for them AKA other people's taxes allow them (and everyone else) to be there.

The food trucks pay taxes as well, and with those taxes have full rights to use public land. They are not subsidized. If the restaurants have to pay so much more for the location, but can't add extra value, the fault lies in their business model.

Food trucks ought to be able to park where they safely can. As PJ said, these regulations hurt consumers, eliminate choices, and stifle innovation.

CR

[a completely inoffensive name]

Well I majored in business administration (:rolleyes:) and the fact that your oil comparison works is the problem. It implies that the product is a commodity that is similar enough across sources that the consumer cannot distinguish between those sources. If these businesses are producing a product and service mix that can be matched by a cart on the street then they are failing to justify their investment in the location. They should either differentiate their product to the point where it offers the consumer a value that the carts cannot match or drop the location and get a cart themselves. The brick and mortar locations and the carts should operate in symbiosis if they are both playing to their strengths. A storefront offers a merchant the opportunity to create a greater value for the consumer and thus charge a premium for that value. If they cannot create that value it is no one's fault but their own. Regulating away more efficient competing business models ultimately hurts consumers.

Mhm. I think I understand now. I will think about this, because I am still skeptical of a few things.


The food trucks pay taxes as well, and with those taxes have full rights to use public land. They are not subsidized.

As for this... Both the food carts and the brick and mortar store owners pay federal taxes. The cart owners don't pay property tax while the store owners 12 feet away do. That is more or less subsidization for the cart operating on public property.

[Crazed Rabbit]

As for this... Both the food carts and the brick and mortar store owners pay federal taxes. The cart owners don't pay property tax while the store owners 12 feet away do. That is more or less subsidization for the cart operating on public property.

The food trucks (likely) pay sales taxes, various restaurant permit fees, and gas taxes.

I'm just going to leave this link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidy

Could you please show some form of actual subsidy? Mere proximity does not mean a subsidy.

CR

[a completely inoffensive name]

The food trucks (likely) pay sales taxes, various restaurant permit fees, and gas taxes.

I'm just going to leave this link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidy

Could you please show some form of actual subsidy? Mere proximity does not mean a subsidy.

CR

It's a de facto subsidy. Instead of the government giving them money they are saying, oh your location is the intersection of busy street and busy street, well that's ok because you are on the street, no property tax for you.

Idk maybe this is just where the pros and cons of brick and mortar vs trucks are. Although I see many pros for trucks and little pros for bricks.

[Montmorency]

and little pros for bricks.

1. Ambiance
2. Seating
3. Heating
4. Air conditioning
5. Higher quality food
6. Greater variety
7. Social activities

[a completely inoffensive name]

1. Ambiance
2. Seating
3. Heating
4. Air conditioning
5. Higher quality food
6. Greater variety
7. Social activities

1. The types of food you get from a truck are usually cheap and fast foods. I guess you could want ambiance for a two dollar slice of pizza, but why?
2. There is no shortage of seats in food courts/areas with high concentration of food.
3. Again, food trucks are fast. You grab your food and you are off. Less than five minutes later you are back at work with heating. Or your car, with heating.
4. Same for air conditioning.
5. This is absolutely false. Quality of food from food trucks has easily matched and surpassed brick and mortar stores. I went to a food truck convention in southern california, and it was easily a lot better than vast majority of stores in my hometown.
6. Again, I find this false. Food trucks can have just as much variety as brick and mortar stores. The thing they can't match is the volume of food they hold, ready to be prepared.
7. Because you can't be social at a food truck? Everyone just stands around while waiting for food and looks at the ground?

[Montmorency]

1. The types of food you get from a truck are usually cheap and fast foods.

There you go. Restaurants by definition don't serve fast food. The only establishments competing with carts are bagel shops, takeout places, and their like. Note that with the aforementioned, proximity is the biggest factor. There are many different sorts of food carts, from halal to good ol' hotdog & pretzel. Any nearby fixed-location food purveyors will typically serve a different sort of fare. As nobody will walk an extra 2 miles to search out a pizza cart instead of visiting his local pizzeria, there is frequently no direct competition.



3. Again, food trucks are fast. You grab your food and you are off. Less than five minutes later you are back at work with heating. Or your car, with heating.
4. Same for air conditioning.

See: seating. Not everyone is on the go.



2. There is no shortage of seats in food courts/areas with high concentration of food.

These are not ubiquitous. It is atypical and doesn't really have bearing on the topic; I'm sure that in food courts carts pay many of the same fees as fixed purveyors, being on private property.


5. This is absolutely false. Quality of food from food trucks has easily matched and surpassed brick and mortar stores. I went to a food truck convention in southern california, and it was easily a lot better than vast majority of stores in my hometown.
6. Again, I find this false. Food trucks can have just as much variety as brick and mortar stores. The thing they can't match is the volume of food they hold, ready to be prepared.

Again, you're only considering fast food. Restaurants have far more variety than carts.


7. Because you can't be social at a food truck? Everyone just stands around while waiting for food and looks at the ground?

You would go out with friends or a partner to a cart? That is the stuff of comedy.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Logic.
FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU I hate being wrong.



You would go out with friends or a partner to a cart? That is the stuff of comedy.

Well yeah. There are a few food carts on my uni competing with the cafes on campus. Me and my buddies always head over to the carts for a quick bite between classes. Is this....not normal?

[Montmorency]

I don't want to press that too far, but I am given to understand that when pairs or groups of individuals intend to have "a night out on the town" they go somewhere "fancy". Perhaps I've just been brainwashed by the corporatist media.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I don't want to press that too far, but I am given to understand that when pairs or groups of individuals intend to have "a night out on the town" they go somewhere "fancy". Perhaps I've just been brainwashed by the corporatist media.

Or maybe me and my friends are just cheap college students. Who knows.

[Major Robert Dump]

In the State of Oklahoma, in order to get a private investigators license, one must either:

- HAve a letter of hire from an agency

- Open one's own agency.

This law, which was lobbied for immensely by the big firms who charge $150 an hour, seems innocent enugh on the face. But then you get to the other law for opening one's pwn firm, which was also lobbied for by the firms:

Prior to recieivng said license for an agency, one must
- submit to a background check which will not take less than 90 days
- provide proof of an up-to-date, current 500k bond insurance policy with an expiration date of no less than 1 year from time of application
- You may not solicit potential clients until you have the license

So essentially you have to pay insurance for 3 months for a business you are not yet operating (bond insurance requires a lot of up-front cash), and that policy must be in contract for a year, so even if your license gets denied you are stuck for the entire cost of the year, and you cannot even mitigate costs by lining up future contracts.

And as for getting hired by a firm and a letter of emplyment, the vast majority of agencies exploit this law to lure new investigators into one-year contracts, where they spend the first month "training" to do things they are already trained to do by virtue of getting CLEET certified to begin with, and all of these contracts stipulate that if you quit before the year is up you will owe them 1 monhts salary for the "training" and you cannot solicit business in their specialized sector (infidelity, mortgage fruad, skip trace etc) for 180 after seperation....

This is just one line of work, from one state. This goes on at every level of business to protect the established industry, and people have turned a blind eye for decades, while the link between politicians and campagn cash is so strong its pathetic and shameful.

This is why I will be working in other countries. F this place, for realz

[Crazed Rabbit]

More taxi company protectionism, this time in Portland: (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/26/portland-livery-law-taxi-cab_n_1316151.html)

Instead of a taxicab across town, you could take a clean, upscale Town car for the same price. But despite car services in many cities ready to take you, new regulations designed to protect big taxi companies are preventing them from doing so.

This is especially true in Portland, Ore., where regulators have waged an aggressive crackdown on car services, also known as livery drivers . . .

In Portland, livery services must charge a minimum fare of $50, and receive reservations at least an hour in advance of pick-up. The law, which went into effect in 2009, also prohibits them from parking in front of hotels. Livery vehicles must charge a minimum rate 35 percent higher than competing taxi companies for any ride outside the city. The fine for violating the ordinance is $500 for the first offense, $1,000 for the second and suspension of permits for a third.
...
In September, two Portland livery companies were initially fined nearly a million dollars and faced losing their businesses for offering a promotion on Groupon, the popular online coupon site. Fiesta Limousine and Pacific Cascade Towncar offered a Groupon for one-time limo or sedan rides at $32, well under the mandated minimum fare. After the offer went live, Portland taxi companies complained to the city. City officials responded with threatening letters to Fiesta and Pacific, and insisted that Groupon remove the promotion. The city then fined Pacific $659,000 and Fiesta Limousine $250,000, based on the number of Groupons sold. The companies were told that if they honored the Groupons, they’d lose their operating permits. Both companies escaped the harsh fines by refunding the Groupons, but each still paid a $500 fine for advertising services under the minimum fare.
...
Frank Dufray, administrator for Portland’s Private-for-Hire Transportation Program, which regulates both taxi and livery services, said the laws aren’t intended to help consumers or the city, but to protect market share for the taxi industry. “The main thing is that you don’t want the Town cars to take all of the best fares, which are to the airport, and not leave any for the taxi industry,” he said. “That’s why there’s a minimum fare and a one-hour wait requirement.”

Yay for regulations.

CR

[Papewaio]

Surely this is government defending a monopoly. How is it a free market economy that looks after big business market share?

Laws should protect consumers this includes protection from price gouging and the ability to choose products based on ability not based on political bribes.

Corrupt policies should result in jail sentences not more pork barrelling.

[Whacker]

Surely this is government defending a monopoly. How is it a free market economy that looks after big business market share?

Laws should protect consumers this includes protection from price gouging and the ability to choose products based on ability not based on political bribes.

Corrupt policies should result in jail sentences not more pork barrelling.

Welcome to America. Injoy ur stay lol.

To me, the final bits of the great facade of capitalism came crashing down during the bailouts a few years ago. I think our government is corrupt to it's absolute core, and all we have left these days are politicians, not leaders.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Technology advances makes some regulators obsolete: (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/how-tech-can-render-regulations-uber-obsolete/)


Naturally, regulators hate it. DC Taxi Commissioner Ron Linton has condemned the company as a scofflaw—and seems hell bent on finding some rule they’re violating, even though his initial complaint against Uber seems to have been legally confused. Most of Linton’s public comments on the matter leave the distinct impression that these are secondary details for him: What’s outrageous is that some upstart would dare to do something new without first coming to kiss the Don’s ring and beg permission. There’s also the inevitable element of regulatory capture: Conventional cab companies would rather not face an innovative competitor, so they’re asking the government to ensure consumers don’t have the option of taking their business elsewhere.
...
The default in a free society is that you can start most kinds of business, and charge whatever rate the market will bear for your services, without the approval of some municipal bureaucrat. The argument for treating cabs differently rests on the idea that, on the conventional model, they’re not as effectively regulated by normal market pressures. Comparison shopping isn’t particularly feasible when you hail a cab the old fashioned way: You just flag down the first one that happens to pass, with the understanding that when the ride’s over, you’re unlikely to ever do business with that particular driver ever again. If you’re from out of town, odds are you won’t ever do business with the company again either, and barring an exceptionally unpleasant experience, most passengers aren’t going to take the time to call the dispatcher with a review. The opportunistic, one-off nature of traditional cab transactions, in short, makes a standardized price structure more attractive, and diminishes the reputation-based incentives to compete on price and quality. So goes the usual argument, anyway.

Uber—or rather, the Uber model—changes all of that. You accept a price structure in advance, when you sign up for an account, and can be clearly notified of any price changes. The app’s review system makes it easy for the company to monitor driver quality without demanding too much effort from passengers. Customers automatically get a full and instantaneous accounting of when and where they were picked up and dropped off, and how much they paid. Because the company expects, and strives for, lots of repeat business—and on word of mouth from satisfied customers as a growth strategy—all the normal market forces and incentives that apply to any other online business are in full effect. Which means the question isn’t whether the regulations need to be updated to accommodate a new kind of cab service: It’s why this kind of service needs a regulator at all.

CR

[Crazed Rabbit]

A restaurant was delayed from opening for a year based on the layout of some outdoor tables:
http://www.princeofpetworth.com/2012/05/latest-on-z-burger-coming-to-columbia-heights-2/

CR

[Vladimir]

Hah. Maryland.

I would like to see the layout. There are legitimate concerns when it comes to foot traffic, fire escape routs, etc.

Edit: I can't make out much from that .pdf.

[Major Robert Dump]

They could have just made the outside ground seating on a blanket and made a relevant theme.

When I open Bob's Little Afghanistan in Baltimore it will all be floor seating and the women will have to eat in the back room and I will only hire 14 year old boys as servers and only if they wear mascara and can belly dance I hope the city doesn't give me too much trouble