Regulations vs Employment

[Crazed Rabbit]

A saga of a San Fran ice cream shop:

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):


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.

[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.

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

[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

[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/...t-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/20...lle-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/20...lle-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 I got today.

[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 () 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 () 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.