This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
Those familiar with Uber swear by it as a wonderful alternative to regular taxi service—which typically involves desperate pleading and begging on the part of would-be customers as they try (sometimes futilely) to hail a cab. Perhaps one of the most prominent fans of Uber is Megan McArdle; see her writings here, here and here on Uber’s services. As McArdle notes, the DC Taxi Commission hates Uber with the fury of a thousand red giants since Uber has the temerity to compete effectively with DC taxi drivers and since the taxi drivers have a lot of pull with the Taxi Commission. If Uber ends up getting regulated into irrelevance or out of existence, the only people who will lose will be consumers in DC, but the DC taxi drivers and the commission don’t really care about that. They just want what they believe to be theirs, and to the infernal regions with the consumers and their wants and needs; as far as the drivers and the commission are concerned, this whole business about the customer always being right is just a bunch of taurine waste matter, not to be taken seriously.
Of course, we all know that DC is capable of craziness—after all, just look at the politicians who populate the city. But lest you think that disregard for consumer preferences is limited to DC, check out John Ross’s story:
Uber, the innovative private car service, is under attack again—this time in Denver. Transportation planners at the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) are proposing rule changes that would cripple Uber’s business model.
Sedans would no longer be able to charge by distance, which is “akin to telling a hotel it is illegal to charge by the night,” says UberDenver’s Will McCollum.
Moreover, Uber drivers would be prohibited from parking within 200 feet of a hotel, restaurant, or bar—essentially barring the service from downtown. Uber customers use a smartphone app to view a real-time map of drivers parked nearby, so the change would mean drivers have to leave downtown and other high-density areas, turn on the app, and then drive back into the city to pick up fares.
If you think that these rules are not explicitly designed to run Uber out of Denver, then I have a Peace, Anger Management and Pacifism course taught by Chris Brown to enroll you in.
And of course, overregulation designed to make innovative businesses go the way of the dinosaur and dodo bird is not limited to Uber, or alternative limousine/taxi services, or DC or Denver. Here, in my wonderful home city of Chicago, we have to put up with food trucks being collectively treated like the Anti-Christ:
… For years city code has stipulated that no food truck can park within 200 feet of a brick-and-mortar restaurant. (Last summer, this ordinance was partially amended to allow for parking between midnight and 2 am.)
Both Balanzar and Hernandez said they go to great lengths to adhere to what city attorneys and many in Chicago’s food truck industry refer to as the “200-feet rule.”
“We went in the middle of the night, just to make sure there’s no traffic or anything like that. And we took a string, a 200-feet of string, and measured from a restaurant to the spot that we were planning to park. Just to make sure we’re 200 feet away,” Hernandez said in an interview at Kitchen Chicago, the West Side industrial center where a number of local food trucks prepare their products.
Balanzar, in particular, says that extra legwork recently paid off during a run-in with police enforcing that 200-foot rule at a West Loop intersection.
“The police came and said, ‘You know what, it’s about inches.’ So they said it’s OK,” Balanzar said.
[…]
This past summer, lawmakers tweaked some of those restrictions governing food trucks—granting them new rights, but also introducing more regulations and heavier fines.
For example: Cooking is now allowed in food trucks if the business passes hefty inspections and purchases the necessary equipment. Meanwhile, lawmakers bumped up fines for violating the 200-foot rule to as much as $2,000 and required trucks to have an on-board GPS device turned on whenever it is in service.
City officials said in a statement after the new ordinance took effect last summer that the GPS device helps both the City and customers keep track of mobile food vehicles. But food truck owners say they already reach out to their followers over social media.
Hernandez says he paid $125 for the device, plus a $25 monthly fee—a sum which might not sound like a lot, but he said his business only makes around $19,000 per year.
“I just think it’s wrong. I don’t know any other industry where you have to have a GPS or whether the City or the police need to know where you are 24-7,” he said.
I have written about this issue before. Note that the same silly, stupid “200 feet” rule that applies to Uber in Denver in terms of determining how close drivers can park to a restaurant, hotel or bar, applies to food trucks in Chicago in terms of determining how close they can park to a restaurant. Apparently, the “200 feet” rule is a symptom of a dumb law. For those who still think that government regulations exist to protect us from known and unknown dangers, and could not possibly serve rent-seeking purposes on the part of big businesses that work assiduously to put politicians in their pockets, this is your cue to think again.
I would hope that city governments in both DC and Denver wise up on their own about Uber. And I hope that Chicago’s city government wises up about food trucks. If they don’t, I could easily see some small-government, populist champions making some serious hay about the antediluvian views of the city governments in question the next time elections roll around. And I would see little reason not to support such rabble-rousers as they do so.
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Comments:
Jul '10
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
It's not just food trucks in Chicago. They are going after a limo service similar to Uber, which a lot of people in the city have found very handy. You have an account, you reserve a limo at a time and place, you get in, it takes you where you want, and your account in charged. Handy. And, of course, objected to by the taxi companies. And the city, which doesn't get the vig from the taxis not taken.
Government has long been in the business of giving out monopolies. You can go all the way back to Whitney and the steam boat monopoly in New York. Nothing has changed in the 236 since we first became a nation.
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
1. I'm all for deregulating cabs. I dream of a day when I can get into a cab in this town that's clean, doesn't have some cloying fragrance, and is driven by someone who knows the town.
2. We're having a food-truck controversy in Minneapolis as well. The restaurant owners want the city to distribute the food-truck spaces throughout downtown, instead of letting them congregate on a particular street. We have the 200-foot rule as well, but it's rather meaningless, since most of the restaurants downtown affected by the trucks - small, independent operations. BTW - are on the second floor in the skyway system.
The GPS rule is ridiculous, but I've no problem making food trucks subject to the same sort of inspection the restaurants have to live with.
May '10
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
Yes, it's all about the money. But as long as brick and mortar restaurants (and whatever the equivalent in regulated cabs) have a regulatory and tax structure they have to labor under; it's unfair to them to allow competitive enterprises that skirt the regulations and taxes.
I'd say level the playing field by tearing down the regulatory and tax structure, but that's never going to happen (in Chicago at any rate) because that's where the money and power are for the politicians.
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
(Apologies for the formatting here: using my iPad!) I love Uber. Just love it. I've used it extensively in LA, SF, and DC -- and even, briefly, before I think it was run out of town, in NY.This is a perfect opportunity for small-government types to make the point to big-government types that any new regulation must pass three tests: 1. Does it make a service or product cheaper and more effective for the consumer? 2. Does it make a service or product safer for the consumer? 3. Does it ensure that consumers will have additional choices?The Uber regulations fail all three.Interesting to note, though, that I know a little bit about the company. Some of its biggest supporters and investors were and -- I presume still are -- major Obama donors.So part of me is thinking: let the company sink. This is the economy you want? This is the economy you're going to get.But a bigger part of me thinks: I love Uber, and I know those entrepreneurs will eventually see the light.Okay, maybe too far. But I do love Uber.
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
I have no problem with inspections, but of course, inspections are supposed to ensure food safety, as opposed to being used as a tool to drive food trucks out of business.
James Lileks: 1. I'm all for deregulating cabs. I dream of a day when I can get into a cab in this town that's clean, doesn't have some cloying fragrance, and is driven by someone who knows the town.
2. We're having a food-truck controversy in Minneapolis as well. The restaurant owners want the city to distribute the food-truck spaces throughout downtown, instead of letting them congregate on a particular street. We have the 200-foot rule as well, but it's rather meaningless, since most of the restaurants downtown affected by the trucks - small, independent operations. BTW - are on the second floor in the skyway system.
The GPS rule is ridiculous, but I've no problem making food trucks subject to the same sort of inspection the restaurants have to live with. · 19 minutes ago
Feb '11
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
A case study on regulation and food trucks: Dr Claw and the Lobster Underground.
Mar '11
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
I would not call it dumb. The law is functioning exactly as intended, restricting competition and rewarding incumbent providers who have strong ties to local political bosses at the expense of new entrepreneurs.
"Of course"? Why would you believe that?
Mar '11
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
I think there are two free-market proposals which might (might) make deregulation of both industries more palatable to Joe Q. Citydweller.
Both Uber and food trucks use a resource owned and paid for by taxpayers: city streets. Make them pay for that usage, and a) the city can refill its coffers, b) there is a rebuttal to the "freeloader" or "black market" charge, and c) prices can even out.
For Uber, the answer is simple: charge for driving on city streets - and leave everything else alone. There are many variations on taxing road use, and a suitable one for most situations can be found.
For food trucks, privatize streetside parking, or at least lease it out to all comers with competitive bidding. If some restaurant doesn't want a food truck to park in front of it, make it pay more than the truck for that privilege.
May '10
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
I have faith in the Hipster generation. These rules will end up being last gasps as the bearded, skinny-jean-wearing Ron Paulistas storm the barricades in defense of apps and hip cuisine serve from the sides of trucks. Have faith.
May '10
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
James Lileks: 1. I'm all for deregulating cabs. I dream of a day when I can get into a cab in this town that's clean, doesn't have some cloying fragrance, and is driven by someone who knows the town.
2. We're having a food-truck controversy in Minneapolis as well. The restaurant owners want the city to distribute the food-truck spaces throughout downtown, instead of letting them congregate on a particular street. We have the 200-foot rule as well, but it's rather meaningless, since most of the restaurants downtown affected by the trucks - small, independent operations. BTW - are on the second floor in the skyway system.
The GPS rule is ridiculous, but I've no problem making food trucks subject to the same sort of inspection the restaurants have to live with. · 4 hours ago
My sainted late father was an inspector for the Minneapolis Health Department; I can attest from personal experience to the fact random inspections of food service operations is important to the sanitation of the prepared food you buy.
As long as regulations only go to a real purpose- such as cleanliness and public health- James is absolutely right.
Mar '11
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
Truly Mr. Oyen? Truly people are trying to do horrible things to you all the time, like the big food companies that put poison in your food so that you’ll never buy food from any competing big food companies?
What manner of safety are citizens receiving in this bargain?
While soldiers of food safety march forward exactly what results are they achieving?
I am certain your father worked hard Mr. Oyen but your apocryphal evidence not withstanding I suspect he would have been better served devoting his talents to some other enterprise.
Edited on February 3, 2013 at 2:55amRe: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
Roberto: no, I don't believe big food companies put poison in my food. We're talking about small restaurants with filthy kitchens and insufficient refrigeration. I know, I know - if they weren't inspected, and people did get ptomaine poisoning, the market would punish them, but I really don't want to be the guy hanging over a toilet for a day.
The study you cited says:
This isn't an argument against inspection; it's an argument against the current inspection regime. And also for nuking the $(#@ out of the stuff, but the oh-so-pro-science left gets the vapors over that.
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
On a related note: this is why libertarians lose in elections, and free-market / deregulatory types get tarred as extremists.
Running on a platform that includes eliminating restaurant and food inspection is not a winning strategy.
Mar '11
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
James Lileks: On a related note: this is why libertarians lose in elections, and free-market / deregulatory types get tarred as extremists.
Running on a platform that includes eliminating restaurant and food inspection is not a winning strategy.· 1 hour ago
Of course it is not a winning strategy Mr. Lileks. Sober reflection and judicious restraint are never winning strategies, appealing to fear and urging the populace towards hysteria have an exceptional track record in comparison.
Persuading citizens to the best course is hard, justifying the worst instincts of your fellow man is easy. Such is the truth now and such it has always been. Do you have another point?
Mar '11
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
James Lileks: Roberto: no, I don't believe big food companies put poison in my food. We're talking about small restaurants with filthy kitchens and insufficient refrigeration. I know, I know - if they weren't inspected, and people did get ptomaine poisoning, the market would punish them, but I really don't want to be the guy hanging over a toilet for a day.
The study you cited says:
This isn't an argument against inspection; it's an argument against the current inspection regime. And also for nuking the $(#@ out of the stuff, but the oh-so-pro-science left gets the vapors over that. · 1 hour ago
Here sir I disagree.
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
My point, Roberto, is that there is nothing in your tone that indicates you are interested in persuasion. My position is an appeal to fear and hysteria, and yours is sober and judicious. Ta-Da! It doesn't seem as if you wish to persuade me; holding a contrary opinion puts me in the bin of dupes and statists, regarded with amused condescension.
Of course persuading people is hard. It takes time. If we are to get to your desired objective of eliminating state inspection of restaurants - a fork in the road where we will part company - then it will be preceded by instructive rollbacks of more important and onerous examples of the regulatory state.
Our family business, for example, involves petroleum AND food. The EPA, as you might expect, is significantly more pertinent to our business than the occasional food inspector. Ideologically, there is no difference. Practically, the difference is enormous. If you are in a similar position - i.e., having your business observed by satellite and subject to fines that consume a month’s profits, and also serving pizza - I’d be interested to hear how you prioritize your concerns.
Mar '11
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
Exactly so. If I was endeavouring to change your opinion Mr. Lileks I would not attempt to do so in a manner such as this. That would be foolish. I am not responding to Mr. Yousefzadeh writings for your sake.
I am not.
I believe I understand your concerns and as I am able I attempt to ameliorate such matters. These are small efforts though, perhaps no more than vanity. I am no wealthy man, no influential personage; I simply do what I am able.
May '10
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
Roberto
Truly Mr. Oyen? Truly people are trying to do horrible things to you all the time, like the big food companies that put poison in your food so that you’ll never buy food from any competing big food companies?
Truly.
A close friend was a health inspector for many years. She had an endless supply of stories about the unsafe practices she found: Rodent droppings in the food and on food prep surfaces, cockroaches, food prep surfaces left unwashed for hours or not washed after use for raw meat before use for vegetables, dirt, mold, and so on.
May '10
Re: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Government Overregulation Edition)
(continued)
Some of the cooks and managers objected strongly to her instructions: "Why should we have to wash our hands all the time? Why must we keep the hot food hot and the cold food cold? We didn't do this in the old country, so why should we do it here? All your talk about cleanliness, fecal bacteria, microbes, and bacterial incubation temperatures is mysterious and strange, and we don't believe it. You claim that the rules are to protect people from disease, but we think it's all lies designed to oppress immigrants." She was often forced to give up on explanations of why they should obey the health laws and resort to simply "if you don't obey I will shut you down".
Edited on February 3, 2013 at 4:55pm