Confiscating your ice cream cones | Hacker News Reader

Confiscating your ice cream cones

jwz.org

125 pointsajdecon33 comments

Reminds me of this article (http://www.economist.com/node/18678963) which talks about overregulation in the USA.

The other thing this reminds me of is The Aviator. It's always fascinating because you essentially see a guy build an empire, and help build an important industry, largely through lack of regulations.

I'm a bit confused about why you and others* put this as the product of United States regulation-- what we're seeing here is the tyranny of local government, exactly the thing that those who oppose national regulation would like to see in charge.

It seems very dangerous to mix up the broader inter-state health and commerce regulation for which the Federal government is responsible with this kind of admittedly oppressive state and local regulation.

*Realizing you don't necessarily speak for the article you linked, of course.

I can't speak for everyone, but I believe in both decentralization (as much as possible, but not more) and limited regulation because of the same core belief: power corrupts. I'm not sure what a systemic solution to local tyranny would look like though.

And yet USA ranks as #2 (XXX old report, wikipedia cites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ease_of_Doing_Business_Index #4) the most friendly country to small business.

You might wonder how, say, #22 feels like, but then you might also reconsider taking such lists into account.

I think this is a particular article related to San Francisco, and not the US in general.

And even more specifically retail food service, one of the more regulation-heavy areas. Starting a small tech business is a lot easier.

And, considering the 3 countries ranked higher are the size of medium to medium-small US states, the USA would seem to be doing pretty well.

If "doing pretty well" looks like this on a global scale, we've got some serious issues to resolve.

Of course, I suspect the actual issue is that this is the food industry, which is (as already mentioned) heavily regulated for not entirely unreasonable reasons.

Regulating food safety might be reasonable, but none of the regulations being discussed are related to food safety.

(At least, I don't think they are. Is a toaster in a coffee shop somehow unsanitary?)

Probably not. I said "not entirely unreasonable" rather than "reasonable" for a reason.

Anyway, my main point was that if the US is really in the top four countries for ease of doing business, we have a major problem.

The USA ranks #10 in the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom. (I think their methodology is more accurate) http://www.heritage.org/index/default

Press release by the SF Planning Department containing the video http://www.sf-planning.org/index.aspx?page=2925

There are worse things:

http://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/02/confiscating-your-ice-cream-...

To which jwz replied: "Safety regulations are great. The bureaucracy we have here goes far beyond that into attempted cultural engineering."

In the case of many local governments (like SF's) I think it has less to do with cultural engineering, and more with protecting a clique of well-connected businessmen. Same reason Louisiana monks can't sell caskets without a casket-making license...

This kind of corruption gets lost in the political shuffle. Both sides of the argument want so desperately to over-simplify the issue into regulation is good/bad as a boolean decision rather than attack specific classes of regulation at their core. It's a lot harder to uncover the corruption behind bad regulation than to vilify regulation at large, which is why I suppose those who have much to gain from the argument choose to simplify it.

Hey! Everybody benefits from simplified regulation. Of course those arguing For it benefit.

And 'benefit' here means entering into fair competition with existing establishments, so it isn't really a benefit. Those establishments with 'protected status' also only 'lose' by having to be competitive too. That's not right or wrong - that's supposed to be the normal free-market ecosystem.

Reducing regulation and returning to a fair ecosystem for small businesses is all that is really being proposed. There will be winners and losers. But the consumer will normally win, and there are a lot more of us.

I'm on the side of the small business owner here, but for some perspective on why restaurant businesses have to go though hell to get set up in SF, search Yelp for "9th avenue burger king". The short version is that people in the neighborhoods go insane if businesses (particularly restaurants, and especially chains) set up in their area.

People still line up to start restaurants in SF.

I'm not much of a free-marketeer, but if enough people "in the neighborhoods" want to eat at a burger king such that it would be economically viable, why should other people be allowed to prevent them from doing that?

Because in this case the burger king was located in the lower floor of a two-story residential building and caused air pollution and litter in the neighborhood.

maybe it's just because i've seen too much TV, but i suspect that a lot of these fees and red tape could have been avoided if you knew the right people.

If "knew" means "bribed" you would be correct.

I helped a buddy of mine open a retail shop a few years ago. The inspections were ridiculous.

The building inspector would show up, find one thing wrong, leave without looking at anything else and tell us to reschedule.

Then another building inspector would show up, find a different problem that the previous inspector thought was fine, leave and tell us to reschedule.

The violations seemed completely arbitrary. Each inspector had a different pet problem. We had one inspector who failed us because the restroom sign was too small. Wouldn't even wait 5 minutes for us to run across the street to grab another one from Staples.

After a few weeks we finally got the original inspector back. We fixed the single original problem he had, and he passed us. For a while I wondered if they expected us to slip them a few hundred dollars.

With regard to the hole between the restaurant and the club, what if you just went ahead and did it? It seems likely that a city with this level of disorganization and incompetence would never find out, let alone do anything about it if they did, right?

Ooh, but there are undoubtedly fines to be had if he goes ahead and does construction work without a permit. I'm sure they'd be all over that in a heartbeat.

I'm sure there are fines, but how would they even know with this level of disorganization? Do you know how much un-permitted construction happens in SF?

Well, for one, putting both your businesses at risk for the sake of a door is a bit of a deep play. A former landlord of mine is just now getting busted for putting in an illegal apartment seven years ago. I personally wouldn't want something like that hanging over my head. What if I want to do more construction in the future?

As the above commenter said: going without permits may work in a residence, but not in a club. Especially one that already has some unfriendly neighbors (read his blog). They will complain, and you'll be liable to get your liquor license pulled. End of story.

They will complain, and you'll be liable to get your liquor license pulled.

Serve the liquor anyway. Get some crazy bootlegger to distill it and have it delivered "Smokey and the Bandit" style if you have to.

OK, maybe not really, but damn is the idea awfully appealing. Government in this country is ridiculously out-of-control, and so totally corrupt, evil and heavy-handed that it would be funny if it weren't real. :-(

It's out of control until you live across the alley from the evil twin of the DNA Lounge (jwz's club), which serves to minors, who puke outside your back door, and which winks at the coke dealers who operate out of the alley behind the place. Then, it turns out, you do want someone to complain to.

It would probably be fine for most businesses, but not for a nightclub or bar -- the SFPD, ABC, and city government have lots more ability to arbitrarily shut the place down (by pulling the liquor license) than they do with other businesses. Read jwz's blog for the entire saga.

Someone (Ron Conway? Mark Pincus? Jack Dorsey? Drew Houston?) should talk to Ed Lee about how the nightclubs and entertainment industry are WHY startups choose to be in SF vs. down in Silicon Valley.

After you watch the video, check the uploader.

Or the article:

> Even the planning department itself is calling for reform. "Hello City Planner," an animated cartoon produced by the department and posted on its Web site, depicts a litany of farcical city hassles faced by a woman applying to sell ice cream.

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