Silicon Valley Techies Fight to Save a Popular but Illegal Haven
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
"What it does not have, according to city officials, are things that would make it an office. It doesn’t have enough fire exits, sprinklers or wheelchair-accessible bathrooms, as required by city regulations."
Software developers are known troublemakers. If you don't keep an eye on them, they'll type away all night optimizing code and drinking caffeine.
What about the children!?
If you're going to downvote a statement of fact, at least explain why you think it's wrong.
A more accurate headline would be 'Haven struggles to stay open while updating to latest codes', having just gone through the process of securing new facilities for our company one of the things in the lease was a requirement that the landlord turn over the space already compliant with the latest codes. Remember this story if you are out leasing space (if you're subleasing you get a pass though, so sometimes that makes it a better deal)
What about the buildings, cars, etc nearby? Fire spreads, and from what I see on Maps the Dojo isn't exactly isolated.
^ Chip in here if you are inclined to support fellow hackers. They need to raise $250,000:
“If they can’t comply, they can’t use the building as
they want to,” said Anthony Ghiossi, the chief building
official for the city.
Hacker Dojo opened without a permit, Mr. Ghiossi pointed
out. It is currently prohibited from hosting events that
draw more than 49 people in any one room, he said. That
means no large classes or overly enthusiastic happy hours,
which are a regular feature on Friday nights.
Ellis Berns, the city’s assistant community development
director, was eager to point out that Mountain View, which
is home to tech giants like Google, did not wish to evict
Hacker Dojo. “We try to be as supportive as we can,” he
said. “Businesses spin out of there. We are not at all
interested in them closing down.”
But retrofitting the space will cost upward of $250,000,
according to the Dojo’s estimate. It has so far raised
$173,000, including donations from its neighbor, Google.
That's one of California's hidden advantages: the mild
climate means there's lots of marginal space. In cold
places that margin gets trimmed off. There's a sharper
line between outside and inside, and only projects that
are officially sanctioned—by organizations, or parents, or
wives, or at least by oneself—get proper indoor space.
That raises the activation energy for new ideas. You can't
just tinker. You have to justify.
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/marginal.html
[2] anthony.ghiossi@mountainview.gov
[3] ellis.berns@mountainview.govEllis Berns doesn't sound like a villain to me but rather just a guy in a tough situation. If the town of Mountain View doesn't enforce their codes here, and if something like the fire in the video posted here were to occur, they'd get their keesters sued out of their pants and rightly so.
That said, it's not even a drop in the bucket of Silicon Valley's vast wealth to fix this so if it's worth saving, I suspect it will be saved.
1. Sprinklers and fire exits? Arguably necessary.
2. ADA compliant bathrooms and wheelchair ramps? Not part of a reasonable MVP[1]. What if every website "had to" be readable in Braille and multiple tongues on day one, before one had the revenue to pay for that sort of thing?
3. As for "building permits", they are just a tax by the local government[2], like red light cameras:
In his opposition, Inks said the permit would
"incentivize" code enforcement officers to go out and find
major violations to bring in revenue. He added that city
officials already get paid a salary.
"To be clear ... this is about raising money," he said,
adding that similar permits and fees in other cities have
led to "further noncompliance" and the "collapse" of code
enforcement efforts, which led to the necessity of giving
property owners an "amnesty" period.
Inks pointed out that small businesses were already being
hit with fines for "petty" violations, such as a $500 fine
on the Milk Pail Market for selling pumpkins in the
parking lot.
As we wrote earlier, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)
is continuing its program of in-depth investigations of
hotels to determine whether they comply with the Americans
with Disabilities Act or ADA. The investigations are
called "sweeps" because they target all hotels in a given
geographic area. There is also some basis to believe that
the sweeps may now also focus on certain industries such
as hotels, restaurants and other places of public
accommodation.
...
In my experience, even the best design professionals
typically have an inadequate knowledge of all of the
accessibility standards. And local building official
approvals provide no protection against accessibility
violations.
Owners and managers of swimming pools at hotels, city
recreation centers and public parks are scrambling to
install mechanical chair lifts to comply with new federal
requirements that all public pools be accessible to
disabled swimmers.
Some hotels fear the cost of the equipment or fines for
noncompliance could put them out of busines
The law doesn’t affect private clubs or pools owned by
neighborhood associations that aren’t open to the public.
It’s a massive and expensive undertaking. The Association
of Pool and Spa Professionals says its research shows that
between 235,000 and 310,000 pools require the upgrade.
Manufacturers estimate the lifts run $3,500 to $6,500, and
installation can double those costs. Altogether, owners
could face combined costs exceeding $1 billion.
POSTSCRIPT: There's at least one obvious alternative to rule by unelected regulators. We already have reviews of everything else under the sun on Google, Amazon, Yelp, Zagat, Consumer Reports, and the like. Some of these reviewers we trust with life and death decisions, like Consumer Reports' car safety ratings. So just do the same for those codes that are truly crucial (e.g. fire codes), by allowing different certification authorities to compete. Maybe you start by expanding the domain of the Palo Alto and Mountain View fire departments such that they overlap, and a certification from either is sufficient to do business such that you get some competition into the mix. With just a little bit of choice, you'll suddenly see much more reasonable and cost-conscious behavior from regulators.
[1] I know it's "the law". But there are unjust laws.
[2] http://www.mv-voice.com/news/show_story.php?id=2260
[3] http://hotellaw.jmbm.com/2010/06/ada_defense_lawyer_implications.html
[4] http://www.heraldnews.com/news/x596769962/New-ADA-access-rules-may-scuttle-swimming-at-some-hotels"Arguably"? No, they're absolutely necessary. It's a multi-tenant building. Why should my property and livelihood be threatened by your inability (or lack of desire) to follow the fire code?
"2. ADA compliant bathrooms and wheelchair ramps? Not part of a reasonable MVP[1]."
A reasonable MVP should include the ability for a social, interactive space to be inclusive. And sorry, it's not the same as a startup deciding what features to include in their initial launch (which arguably happened a long time ago - this, now, is when the details need to be nailed down). Oh, and the ADA is Federal Law, precisely because of businesses and such that felt that discriminating against a subset of the populace was an "acceptable" omission (for their "MVP" or otherwise).
"3. As for "building permits", they are just a tax by the local government"
That they are. Building permits are a method of more fairly distributing the cost of amenities and public services. You have ongoing property taxes for maintenance and upkeep, but a development may trigger a review - is water, power, sewage, traffic control, parking, adequate? Such reviews cost money. I'm confused though, how you then chose to quote an out-of-context example about "some" (unnamed) cities choosing to root out code violations - something not entirely the same, and actually largely designed to find people who have chosen to skirt their community obligations by not using the permit process.
For the record? I'm absolutely for the Hacker Dojo and wish more existed around here (and / or that I had the time / ability to found one).
The city also began pressing for more codes to be met.
Weekly rattled off what appear to be significant costs:
$150,000 to make three bathrooms compliant with the
American Disabilities Act, $130,000 for fire sprinklers,
and potentially thousands more in building permit fees and
other improvements.
"They want us to commit to a traffic study, build concrete
walls around the dumpster and have the landlord re-slope
the driveways," Weekly said.
City staff said that it hasn't been determined whether the
building has adequate exits and parking.
City officials say code enforcement officers saw the Dojo
advertising events online that would exceed the Dojo's 49-
person occupancy limit for a building without fire
sprinklers.
----
ORIGINAL POST:
Well, I think we're at a basic philosophical impasse here. I'd argue that you probably have never dealt with the details of the regulatory process, and that if you did, you might feel differently; regulations are by their nature safety or security theater, optimized for optics. Most of the startups who've encountered specific regulations (Uber, AirBnB, Square, among them) tend to be much more skeptical of their wisdom than the public at large.
But, even more deeply, we don't want to live in the same societies.
You don't want to live in a place where crazy hackers can pack 50 people into an area zoned for 49, or have a building without a wheelchair-accessible bathroom. Stated in a less flip way, you don't want to be on the hook for the risks taken by others, and you want to force them to comply with certain cultural mores that you consider the basics of civilized society.
By contrast, I don't want to live in a place where other people can impose irrational regulations without concern for practicality, cost, or consequences. I don't want to live in a place where other people aren't content with making their own places wheelchair-accessible, but want to impose their own ethical code on me as well, via fines and DOJ sweeps, among other mechanisms.
Ultimately a lot of this boils down to population density and the extent to which someone can choose risk freely on their own. I'm very skeptical about the necessity of the ADA and cynical about the regulators enforcing the building permits process; you are not. I believe that government should be focused more on preventing actual crimes than doing sweeps for ADA violators; you may believe the lack of said accommodations to be discrimination, and therefore a reasonable priority for the federal government. So I think we'll have to just agree to disagree here.
You can compare the death tolls from similar earthquakes in places that have effective earthquake building codes (like Chile) and places that don't (like Haïti). That's not "theater". That's hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths, prevented.
Fire used to be a major killer in the US, a century ago, far more than violent crime ever has been. People were routinely killed in panicked stampedes out of burning, or supposedly burning, theaters. Fire codes have reduced fire deaths to a tiny fraction of what they used to be.
I don't think this is a "basic philosophical impasse". I think you're just not aware of the relevant facts. Maybe if you're aware of them and just choose to ignore them, that's sort of "philosophical", in the sense that you're being insufficiently philosophical, perhaps even misosophical.
I strongly support my friends at Hacker Dojo who are undertaking the necessary improvements, and I encourage you to support them too, by donating money if possible.
But, just taking your specific example for a second, that actually seems to argue in favor of my point that these regulations are safety theater...because the Cromanon people received a permit!
www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/world/americas/21briefs-7MEMBERSOFBA_BRF.html?_r=1
...evidence showed that the club was given a permit
although it lacked basic measures like fire extinguishers.
As for the next move, this is a Rorschach test. One response is to increase the stringency of the regulation, indirectly fining all other businesses for the Cromanon incident. An alternative response is to penalize the regulators involved, in the same way that Arthur Andersen paid a penalty for giving a thumbs up on Enron.
The key difference is whether there is one government regulator or many distributed and competing reviewers. If there is only one regulator, the inevitable result of any terrible incident will be to monotonically ratchet up regulations on everyone, TSA style, with the only concern being PR and no heed for costs. Alternatively, if there is competition among reviewers, then that organically leads to an ongoing assessment of whether a particular rule is worth the costs or not.
How are we even debating this? Do we really think people in wheelchairs shouldn't be able to use the bathroom? Pretty much every fire/accessibility regulation seems like something I'd want from every building I step foot in.
They were quoted a charge of $150,000 to add three wheelchair-accessible bathrooms. Do you think that is really the best use of money at inception? Can't they say "we'll add that when we get to 1000 members, we can't afford it right now, please go to the Starbucks next door, here's a map"?
It's pretty damn hard to raise $150k. That is easily more than a year's income, after tax, for a highly paid engineer in the Bay Area. Even with national publicity from the New York Times they've raised about $50k. And it's sort of difficult to raise $150k for the bathrooms.
This is a gold-plated feature for a garage group without money, it's not a reasonable early feature. And that's before the traffic studies, concrete enclosed dumpsters, and other things the city wants. The ironic thing is that several people in this thread support the regulations while also saying things like:
For the record? I'm absolutely for the Hacker Dojo and
wish more existed around here (and / or that I had the
time / ability to found one).
We must thank god YC itself hasn't attracted their attention. I guess pg could pay them off now, but might have been touchy in the early days.
Human life and dignity is more important than saving silicon valley a few dollars.
Here's the thing about 'relevant facts': you could each have a mountain of them (the same mountain, even): and still reach diametrically opposing conclusions, precisely because this is a philosophical debate.
As with most political debates, this one can easily be reduced to two schools of thought: either the individual exists for themselves, wherein the highest moral value is liberty, or the individual exists at the behest of society, wherein the highest moral value is servitude.
In the case of the latter, it is a part of society's mandate to protect itself from the individual. The only question becomes, how far do you go? As evidenced by this thread, intelligent people can disagree about what is reasonable or necessary.
Science/<Deity> help us if we continue our relentless march toward democracy, where the answer to that question increasingly derives from society's lowest common denominator.
Edit: Exposition/self-indulgent philosophizing.
I have a fundamental disagreement with the premise of 'positive' vs. 'negative' liberty, because it conflates separate, unrelated issues (as a corollary, I also reject the notion that anything someone else has to provide for you can be considered a 'human right').
And let's not forget that the Gilded Age also saw the rise of labor unions. See also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmzZ8lCLhlk, especially the last 2.5 minutes.
In my opinion, the only acceptable definition of 'liberty' in a political context would be something like 'one's ability to live free of coercion and violence from others'.
Since this necessarily extends to everyone, not just me, a free society therefore requires a strong judicial system, not only to protect persons and property from physical harm, but to prevent things like fraud, collusion, or any other activity that deprives an individual of life, liberty, or property absent their informed, uncoerced consent.
Believe it or not, if such a society existed, providing equal protection under the law, it would certainly be superior to what we have in the US today (consider that no one went to jail during the banking crisis, despite the number of laws [especially fraud laws] broken).
The gilded age saw the rise of Marxism and labour unions precisely because the super-rich domination of the world was so depraved, complete, and horrible.
A recognition of positive liberty is very very basic to understanding the human condition. Without access to food, water, shelter for every child, no concept of liberty is possible. The positive/negative liberty concept is important precisely because it exposes the stupidity of the 100% classical liberal approach, which HAS been tried and HAS failed.
The job of the state is to improve human lives, not to conform to some stupid dead ideology that is making a modern resurgence because propaganda has become so very ubiquitous and powerful.
Also, false. The founding fathers were pretty explicit about what our inalienable rights were. Food, clothing, and shelter do not number among them.
Again, you have you realize that, philosophically, the assertion you're making is that the government has the right and duty to take from one group of people, and give to another. Once you make that okay, well... here we are now.
I don't give a shit about the founding fathers. I am philosophically asserting that positive liberty is a legitimate philosophical concept, a worthwhile concept, and in fact I believe that the widespread adoption of the value of "positive liberty" will be the next ideological step forward for humanity.
The bridge between our species right now and our species in a Star Trek future is our recognition of positive liberty as a human right.
Hahahahaha. Oohhh, but I do, because I've debated your kind more times than I care to count. It's you who doesn't have the wit to see we're talking past each other, again, due to differing philosophical premises. The difference is, at least on an intellectual level, I understand the premises underpinning your philosophy (provably erroneous though they may be), whereas you're not even capable of understanding mine.
> I don't give a shit about the founding fathers.
Welp, if you live in the US, you might consider finding a new country of residence, as they're the guys who set down the rules for this one.
> I am philosophically asserting that positive liberty is a legitimate philosophical concept
Are you familiar with the term 'cognitive dissonance'? As soon as you assert that the government's responsibility is to provide for the 'greater good', you lose all practical constraints on its power, and end up in a society like the one we have now, with eminent domain [1], civil asset forfeiture [2], the war on drugs, the war on terror, indefinite detention, etc., etc.
> The bridge between our species right now and our species in a Star Trek future is our recognition of positive liberty as a human right.
Riiiighhht... because governments are known to do such a great job at tasks that don't involve breaking things and killing people. Hell, even space travel (a product of the Cold War, let's not forget) is now being primarily taken up by the private sector.
"This post brought to you by Statism: ideas so good, they have to be mandatory." [3]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJd4Q4u5cqU [3] https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-InolyZZdONU/UACaMEHsPmI/A...
I'm fully aware that I'm a statist. You think I don't know this?
To say that statism is philosophically indefensible is complete bullshit. Tons of philosophers have defended it and it's very much alive and well. Statism remains the most popular form of government in the world. Statism has produced the greatest governments in history.
In conclusion, I think it's quite sad that you don't even realize people like me exist. You seem to think that my existence as a calm, confident, well-informed statist is somehow impossible.
You really don't seem to be listening to me. How many times do I have to say that I find the arguments in favour of statism and positive liberty to be convincing and valid?
Honestly, classical liberalism has been tried and it is bullshit. It was a good idea in its time but we have surpassed it. There are better forms of government.
Also, I don't give a shit about the founding fathers and I'm under no obligation to. They were smart back in their day but now they are old and dusty and should go die. Humanity must progress.
What a surprise, the people whom the regulations prevent from making more money are less convinced about their wisdom than the people whom those regulations are ostensibly designed to protect.
>you want to force them to comply with certain cultural mores that you consider the basics of civilized society.
I would imagine that there are certain cultural mores you consider to be the basics of civilized society that you're okay with forcing people to comply with. Like, say, the illegality of stealing.
>I don't want to live in a place where other people aren't content with making their own places wheelchair-accessible, but want to impose their own ethical code on me as well, via fines and DOJ sweeps, among other mechanisms.
What if I were to say, "I don't want to live in a place where other people aren't content with allowing black people in their restaurant, but want to impose their own ethical code on me as well." It's certainly a bit of an exaggeration, since it doesn't cost you anything to allow black people in your restaurant whereas a wheelchair accessible bathroom does, but quite obviously this isn't as black and white (no pun intended) as you make it out to be.
And you mentioned it is a multi-tenant building - then why has this issue not been a major problem until now with the other tenants?
Same with wheelchair ramps and all. This is part of the "inclusive" madness nowadays, where you have to satisfy all human beings on Earth and make sure you do not discriminate anyone. Life is about choices, and choice is a nice word for discrimination. If the hacker dojo does not want to include wheelchair ramps and all, they are losing out on talented handicapped members who could benefit the whole community. And that's they choice/their problem. It's not up to the State to say what choices they should make. And when you start like that, then you should also have doors with indications for blind people, and bumps of the floor for blind people to follow when they walk and so on. It never ends when you start considering "EVERYONE ON EARTH" as a potential client/customer of your space.
And "Federal Law" does not justify anything. Before the official Law authorized Slavery and other monstrous things, the "Law" does not make anything right in moral terms.
Now, I think for Hacker Dojo, there potentially is a bit of unfairness going on but this is about a larger point.
In the end, anyway, the insurance contract would cover most of the damage costs. That's why insurance systems exist and are usually mandatory. And the free market should reflect the cost of having no fire protection in your property. Net, you would not need to have regulations to enforce that, the costs themselves would probably entice you to get at least minimum fire protection, based on the insurances recommendations.
Seriously, most people seem to be believe that regulations have existed forever and that civilization was born with it. On the contrary, the amount of regulations we deal with nowadays is a very recent thing in History, and most people lived before with other systems in place to ensure their safety without the need of Big-Ass Governments.
Insurance? Really, insurance? If you don't like building codes, who says you're going to get insurance?
What if you start getting behind on your bills? Now I'm left holding the bag again.
Your argument is a strawman. No one says governments have always existed and civilization could nor have existed without them. That's stupid, why say that? It's a fact that things were much more dangerous and more likely to be fatal before regulations that enforce minimum safety standards. So yeah, civilization would exist, it would just be more dangerous. What a silly argument.
Also, if what you said was true about this magical insurance compliance then there wouldn't be any buildings in active use that don't conform to minimum safety because we have this free market with perfect actors that pay their bills or some such nonesense.
Now, the second thing, how is your magic lawsuit/insurance fix going to bring back the dead? Or do they have to stay dead due to your rickety building because that's one thing the magic free market can't do.
Come on this is hard to take seriously, and yet I'm accused of not understanding the issues.
I'd rather read an impenetrable 10 page EULA than examine an entire building (with absolutely no expertise) for the possibility that it might kill me.
Maybe a compromise would be that the inspectors would show up, do their code inspection, then put a big sign lined in blinking red neon on every external door that says every single thing that's wrong with the building, how it doesn't care about the disabled or whether you burn to death.
Could even become trendy amongst the laissez-faire set.
When a homeowner has a fire put but failed to pay the firemen the fire brigade does come out, makes sure that the inhabitants are safe, and then lets the house burn down and makes sure that is does not spread to the neighbors, who have paid for fire service.
Next thing that happens, everyone hates on the fire brigade because they did not put out the fire. People need to be prevented from shooting themselves in the feet.
(There's also the other problem that when someone's house burns down, such a person will likely become a ward of the state, and that can't be allowed to happen. That's why in some countries it's mandatory to carry fire insurance.)
In my experience, even the best design professionals
typically have an inadequate knowledge of all of the
accessibility standards. And local building official
approvals provide no protection against accessibility
violations.
The Dojo, which is used as an office and collaborative
space by 300 programmers who pay a $100 monthly fee, has
been open since late 2009. Until last fall, Dojo board
members say city officials had been relatively permissive
as the Dojo operated without building permits in an
industrial garage space, and was welcomed by some
officials as a sort of incubator for tech start-ups.
"We had a small celebration, but it wasn't a big, crazy
celebration" Weekly said. "That kind of pushed them over
the line. They were starting to see us as a commercial
event space."
..
The city also began pressing for more codes to be met.
Weekly rattled off what appear to be significant costs:
$150,000 to make three bathrooms compliant with the
American Disabilities Act, $130,000 for fire sprinklers,
and potentially thousands more in building permit fees and
other improvements.
The Dojo also lacks a required fire alarm, which could
cost $15,000. Without one, city officials say they'll seek
the closure of the Dojo by the end of the month.
"They want us to commit to a traffic study, build concrete
walls around the dumpster and have the landlord re-slope
the driveways," Weekly said.
City staff said that it hasn't been determined whether the
building has adequate exits and parking.
City officials say code enforcement officers saw the Dojo
advertising events online that would exceed the Dojo's 49-
person occupancy limit for a building without fire
sprinklers.
The Dojo has had to cancel numerous money-raising events
and classes that easily attract more than 49 people. "Our
membership is down considerably" without the classes, said
Weekly. "We lost dozens of members. We had classes on
machine learning and Android programming."
Also cancelled was a job fair in which employers and job
seekers switch roles: programmers sit at tables presenting
their work to potential employers who make the rounds.
"We've gotten dozens of people hired from these," Weekly
said. The event brings in up to 150 people and "raises a
good chunk of change. But we can't run it this year and
these people can't get hired."
Weekly said the Dojo has enough money -- $15,000 -- to put in fire alarms.
"We just wish they would take into account the reality of
the situation," he said. "What I don't think they realize
is this is a volunteer-run nonprofit. We don't have
millions of dollars coming out of our ears because we are
affiliated with numerous computer-related things."
In other words: give these guys an inch and they'll take a mile, asserting their author-it-ay the whole way. It always starts with something reasonable sounding (fire codes) and then moves to incentivizing the government for uncovering more violations and more fines. And it's very hard to figure out all the violations ahead of time [3]:
This is a flat-out lie. Building codes are written for the sole purpose of guaranteeing minimum safety standards in a jurisdiction. The reason that California has such stringent building codes is that California is the most earthquake-prone state in the nation. Our building codes may increase the initial upfront cost of building, but they are estimated to have saved billions yearly in prevented property damage and loss of life. Compare, for example, the typical yawn that Californians give to a Richter-4 earthquake to the devastation that similar-strength quakes have had in Mexico, Europe, Asia, and (ironically enough) the U.S. East Coast.
The ADA exists to make sure that all people have access to a building open to the public (it does not apply to buildings which are not open to the public). This generally means any business. The civil enforcement provisions may be overzealous, but they were also added in because they were once necessary.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3565426
You were colossally wrong about something ostensibly in your domain of expertise, and then too you said something similar ["I do international tax for a living. I laughed so hard at this line I started crying."].
You seem to thus have a history of making hostile, bold, unsubstantiated statements. OP might be wrong, but at least provides links and argument. You simply cite the ADA at its word, while conceding en passant that enforcement might be "overzealous" [ya think?].
You attempted to point out that: Well, if you are an international tax lawyer, obviously moves like the Double Irish show that the base of incorporation matters quite a bit: which is not true.
The Double Irish is a matter of where a company is headquartered, which has a distinct legal meaning that is not the same thing as a company's "base" of operations. The difference: headquarters = management; base = actual business activities.
The double irish takes advantage of a peculiarity of Irish law (which no longer exists in its original form) that did not impose income taxes on companies incorporated in Ireland but HQ'd in another nation. This loophole has since been closed (but companies taking advantage of it were grandfathered to prevent them from leaving Ireland). A variation of the Double Irish is still feasible today, but generally does not offer the same benefits as the original Double Irish.
That's flatly wrong. The distinction between US and Irish tax code is and was indeed highly material. And one you were not aware of, despite being an "international tax lawyer". Moreover, the Double Irish is by no means the only workaround. Microsoft has a pretty sweet thing going with Puerto Rico:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/28/microsoft-tax-haven...
And there's a lot more where that came from:
http://www.businesspundit.com/25-corporations-that-pay-less-...
Clearly there actually are a myriad of strategies which multinationals can use to minimize their tax bill by exploiting differences between countries, and even more clearly those countries with the most favorable tax regimes are the ones chosen as places to expand. Which is exactly the phenomenon whose existence you denied:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3565426
So tell me this: why anyone would want to engage you as an "international tax lawyer" if you don't have the knowledge to actually, y'know, help them minimize their tax bill?
I said nothing of the sort, and HN can read the comment you linked. My comment claimed only that taxes not being the primary motivating factor for locating a business, because they are not. I do not deny the existence of favorable tax regimes, because I have helped clients use them, but (and this is the important part), only the non-operating, "holding" companies can take advantage of most of these favorable tax regimes. The actual operating, money-earning entities generally are located in the actual country of operating, regardless of taxes. (See for example, any holding company structure, including the Double Irish, in which an "IP holding company" is located in Ireland, HQ'd in the Caymans, and licenses the IP to the actual money-earning entities.)
So tell me this: why anyone would want to engage you as an "international tax lawyer" if you don't have the knowledge to actually, y'know, help them minimize their tax bill?
Last year, I helped a variety of client reduce their global tax liablity by roughly 28-35%, on average. And that's they key: global tax liability. My job is to look at the final numbers. Accepting a higher local tax rate (i.e., losing one battle) is sometimes necessary to achieve a lower total global liability (i.e., winning the war).
A debate about international tax law with a tax lawyer on a thread about fire codes?
I could NOT disagree with this more strongly. It is simply NOT acceptable to discriminate against people or exclude them, and it would NOT be acceptable to create a website that isn't readable with a screen-reader. What do you mean by "readable in braille"? I suspect you have little notion as to what making things accessible really entails.
As for the larger point: this is the law. Whether you agree with it or not, every single office has to comply with this. Why should these guys get an exception just because you like what they're doing? How could the city possibly justify giving them an exemption and not every Tom Dick and Harry that asks for one after that point?
Let's imagine a website with... infographics like http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/ If it was a commercial website, should the government intervene? Maybe make them buy or make a special font to create their chartslike https://www.fontfont.com/how-to-use-ff-chartwell instead of using images? No? How is it different from a special lift to the pool?
>How is it different from a special lift to the pool?
Because lots of people in wheelchairs swim, and some people just go to the pool to float?
>I could NOT disagree with this more strongly. It is simply NOT acceptable to discriminate against people or exclude them
If that was the law, then Edinburgh Hacklab[1] wouldn't be able to exist, at least on its present premises. This would not help any wheelchair users, but it would harm non-wheelchair users. if a law helps no-one and harms plenty, it's a bad law.
Come to think of it, it would also be necessary to demolish and rebuild most of Edinburgh Old Town to comply with an everywhere-wheelchair-accessible policy. I do not regard this as practical.
> if a law helps no-one and harms plenty, it's a bad law
True, but you're picking a single example unfairly. You could make this claim about any building and accessibility - "if we have to make it accessible or get rid of it, we'll get rid of it, then no one is helped". You're missing that the law provides an overwhelming incentive for buildings to be accessible (after all, not everyone is going to pick the "fine we won't build it then" option). Without this law, far fewer buildings would be accessible, which definitely would harm wheelchair users.
Governments are good and they exist for a reason. You are arguing in support of all kinds of unsafe, unenlightened, harmful, discriminatory practices all under the heading of "it's not profitable" which is complete bullshit. The government is not there for the sake of your profit. They are there to protect the interests of the public. It's not okay for a business to just tell the disabled to fuck off, or to create a situation where a fire will result in mass deaths. Living in a civil society means you have obligations to your fellow citizens, you have an obligation to install sprinklers so you don't kill people and burn down the block and an obligation to be inclusive of those who are different.
Your entire post is nothing but a selfish, narrow-minded rant in support of your own short-sighted bottom line. You would happily destroy any semblance of civilization if it increased your income by some tiny fraction. That is not enlightened, that is pathetic short-sighted selfishishness.
You are the dark side of entrepreneurialism. The entrepreneur who wants the disabled to be excluded because serving them isn't profitable. The slumlord who thinks it's fine to let his property be a fire hazard because he "owns" it.
Your "ownership" and "private property" is nothing but a social construct designed specifically to promote the greater good. Your property rights are not a natural law, they were created by the government, gifted by the government, enforced by the government.
With an attitude like that, you will seriously bring back Marxism. This country is already seeing a violent backlash against selfish, destructive, short-sighted greedy business owners who blame the government for everything. With that rhetoric people are going to start wanting to guillotine Silicon Valley, since Wall Street is up on the chopping block already.
Tech people are supposed to be socially conscious. We're supposed to be political animals who care about our communities and the progress of civilization. This ignorant railing against the government is nothing but people who never studied the Gilded age, back when your laissez-faire capitalism was demonstrated and failed. These regulations are there because the market does not solve certain issues. Grow the fuck up and realize you're living in a society full of many people and there are human interests that trump your profit-motive.
"Won't someone think of the children?"
There are many problems in the world. People who make it their business to attack governments for supporting wheelchair access and fire-codes are engaging in a special kind of evil.
No, MV wouldn't get sued. Or rather, if someone did sue, said someone would be at risk for sanctions for filing a frivolous lawsuit.
US govts have no obligation to enforce their laws. They certainly have no liability for failure to do so.
Better than that, they could use the facilities even in a state of disrepair, and they did for a long time. It's only now that it has been inspected that suddenly it becomes dangerous.
I think the city has an obligation here to prevent people from getting hurt -- unknowingly. You shouldn't walk into an unsafe building without knowing it. But once you put a big red sign up on the door, as long as there is no danger to surrounding buildings or people, leave the guys alone.
To top it off, we have this quote: "We try to be as supportive as we can...Businesses spin out of there. We are not at all interested in them closing down"
Bullshit. This is the classic Nuremberg defense: we're only following the system. Politicians are voted into office to make decisions, and they could have a wavier created in an hour if the right strings were pulled. This is just a matter of hackers not having a strong local political voice. (I do not like the system being broken in a way such that squeaky activists get special treatment, but it is what it is) Hell, the city should be paying itself for the building to be brought up to code. There shouldn't even be a question about it being a problem for the coders to solve on their own. What the hell kind of priorities do they have out there? They have a place successfully spinning off startups and they're fucking around with it? Other cities would kill for something like that.
I just find it amazing that the parks and streets in the Bay Area are full of people living a catch-as-catch-can existence. There's rampant drug use, violent crimes, and so on. Perhaps if we were concentrating on public safety and helping the most number of people, instead of working in silos, we would be doing other, more important things?</rant>
$250k isn't a huge amount of money, so I don't think there's a huge risk of them getting shut down. Especially given that the space itself is inherently handicap accessible, I don't think ADA bathrooms should be a pressing requirement. Yes, they should have them, but it's not sufficient to deter handicapped people from attending, and it doesn't hurt the value of the space to the majority of non-handicapped attendees.
It is not "rent-seeking, plain and simple". I speak from experience, as I've carried out many risk assessments against buildings for live events. Fire and building codes exist for a very specific reason: to save lives and prevent injury.
If you think being forced to install sprinklers is somehow 'rent-seeking' perhaps you should remember that the Rhode Island Station nightclub fire (in which 100 people died) could have had significantly less impact had sprinklers been installed (as the building code specified). There are too many examples to count of fires where lives have been lost as a result of inadequate prevention and control systems.
You may not like the fact that these systems cost money to install and maintain. You may not also like the fact that in most states that vast majority of commercial buildings require them. But they are very much not 'spurious' regulations.
Frankly i don't see where any of this outrage is coming from. They've already raised most of what they need from private donations. It seems unlikely they will actually be shut down. If they were somehow unable to raise the few tens of thousands more they needed to get up to code, it would be due to the greed and stinginess of the well-off so-called pro-business types in the bay area. If tech investors cared a fraction as much about promoting startups and the economy as a whole as getting equity and a solid return on their investment, fund-raising for this sort of thing would be ridiculously easy.
Alas most all wealthy individuals are stingy as hell; they might give you $100 if you kiss their feet and carve their name in stone. Otherwise go back to your ghetto and quit bothering them.
Hacker Dojo is one of the most respected hacker spaces on the planet. They try and do things as legally and 'up to code' as they can with the resources they have.
Also, I agree with others that the headline was ridiculous. By this standard, many people's middle class homes are "illegal" for one reason or another. However, one positive of the sensationalist headline is it might make people pay more attention and possibly donate.
Being a startup does not give them carte blanche to ignore basic laws of society, especially not laws which address actual safety concerns. [Of relevance to Hacker Dojo: see pretty much every mass casualty club/nightclub tragedy of the past decade, in which dozens died in each instance due to code violations.]
More importantly: if someone had gotten hurt or died in Hacker Dojo as a result of a code violation, all of their officers would be facing criminal negligence charges.
Also, in most jurisdictions I've worked in, requirements to bring bathrooms up to ADA are not triggered unless you're already doing renovations over a certain amount in the building. Maybe here it's because the use type of the space is changing, though.
In California, there are no protections when you do a commercial lease to make sure the space is legal for you to use. The tenant is responsible for making the space usable.
"Why should the government tell me I need this many exits, or that I need a wheelchair ramp if no-one needs it?"
"Because you're too short-sighted to see how important those things are. The government is watching out for you and those unfortunate enough to know you."
The rest? Most of it sounds like a combination of people wanting to believe nothing bad can ever happen to them and the nanny state wanting to keep itself employed.
1. Fire sprinklers were added to the IRC and IBC due to their ability to prevent fires (surprise!), in light of the fact that costs have come down significantly, and they can now make them look "not ugly".
Fires aren't just going to damage your building, they'll damage the stuff you don't own as well.
2. The number and placement of fire exits is usually based on the distance one has to travel from any given occupied space, and the occupancy of the building. This distance is determined based on real numbers like how far you are likely to get before smoke inhalation kills you.
Letting the probably non-existent free market sort this out by "the people who didn't die" learning to only frequent places that have sufficient fire exits seems like a bad strategy.
3. You probably don't remember the wonderful days before the ADA, when there weren't many wheelchair ramps, and people with wheelchairs were basically told to "suck it" everywhere they went (including, in some cases, government buildings).
Fire exits are required to make sure people can exit a burning building within 3-7 minutes (varies by jurisdiction). This is based on an unfortunate history of tragedies involving people dying in fires, in which it was discovered that people who did not manage to escape in the first few minutes usually succumbed to the smoke.
> No sprinklers.
> No handicap access.
On second thought...