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Comment by bichiliad | Hacker News Reader

Apparently, the Chief Strategy Officer of OTG is Larry Schwartz, a Cuomo staffer[1]. The fact that the prices are illegally high (apparently airport concessions may charge no more than 10% higher than "street" pricing for things) combined with the fact that operations are headed by someone close to the institution responsible for enforcing this sort of regulation smells a lot like a racket.

[1]:https://twitter.com/MarketUrbanism/status/142235397825221836...

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where does this "no more than 10% from street pricing" come from? i've seen no airport that charges less than +50% for alcohol.

I don’t think the food or drinks at the Manufactory Food Hall in SFO [1] have that high of a premium. They’re starting from a high base, but I don’t recall it being “the usual” +50%.

[1] https://sf.eater.com/2019/1/22/18193239/manufactory-food-hal...

Someone has to provide the service, and if private sector is not interested Cuomo will find a friend/cousin/sister willing to run it, like $3000/month homeless shelters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WGjCeFyr1g

With the extra requirements necessitated by being behind the security checkpoints, I don’t think it would be possible to only have a 10% premium. If this were enforced, I think we would end up with no airport food that was remotely edible.

Life (and capitalism) finds a way. A 55" tv is now a few hundred bucks when a few years back a lower res one half the size was $20k.

I don't think $30 beers is a necessity that follows from "someone has to push a case of beers through an x-ray machine".

All y’all on the thread depth are grossly underestimating the compliance costs these companies go through.

If you think it’s pushing a case of beer through a scanner, you sound like the hated “idea/business person” who thinks writing code is easy and can be an afterthought.

In any field where I don’t have experience, I try to remind myself that most of the iceberg is under the water.

Maybe. Or maybe they have a monopoly, so they're doing what monopolistic providers throughout history have always done: Increase prices as much as the market will bear and profit.

Healthy competition is necessary for unregulated capitalism to function effectively. When that fails, we shouldn't be surprised to see $400 insulin. Or, in this case, $28.50 beers.

I think we are in complete agreement that the details matter, and those of us discussing this are doing so without enough information to be considered well informed.

I've been into the restricted areas of an airport - there's actually less security than for a normal passenger going to a gate.

Isn't that because the people in that area are pre-screened? There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes that would not be obvious to a visitor, including the security infra to get to that place.

The food providers don’t pay for the checkpoints.

Just because they don’t pay for the checkpoints doesn’t mean the checkpoints don’t incur a cost on the food

It's cost effective. There is separation of duty and the food is scanned just like luggage.

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