Crazed Rabbit 06:25 02-07-2012
A saga of a San Fran ice cream shop:
Originally Posted by :
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):
Youtube Video
CR
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