San Francisco small business regulations

[metalman]

A small business entrepreneur learns about restaurant regulations in San Francisco.

It is based on the red-tape endured by Juliet Pries, an entrepreneur who decided to open an ice-cream parlor in San Francisco's Cole Valley. She had to pay rent on an empty storefront for over two years while the necessary permits were processed, and tens of thousands of dollars in fees

Before Ice Cream Shop Can Open, City’s Slow Churn

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 to turn on the water.

San Francisco Mayor Edwin M. Lee’s office announced last week a $1.5 million fund to help small businesses, calling the sector the “Backbone of SF Economy.”

If it takes 2 years of paying rent on an empty storefront to get permits to open, that's a lots of overhead to carry considering the average restaurant is only in business for three years has to be some pricy ice cream to pay for those 2 years.

Normally if a small business is not open within 3 months after signing a lease ... its out of business

 

[redrumloa]

This is the Pelosi/Obama model for the rest of the country

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Interesting - that video was made by the planning department itself. Seems they are fed up with the tangle of code too.

This is not just a San Fransisco problem. It is a general problem of "maturity" in any place that produces code. People always like to add code, and they don't like to take out old code and over time it gets harder and harder to navigate the code. Sometimes you just have to get in there with a machete and hack out the dead wood.

Right now in Vancouver we have a neighbourhood theatre that was a movie theatre but that now, in addition to showing movies, holds live events. A while back they applied to get a liquor license to do two live events a month where they can serve alcohol. All the other nights would be non alcohol events and screenings.

Now they have the license they are told that this means that they cannot show movies any more. This is ridiculous on its face but you can be pretty sure that all the current license holders that live by the current rules and run their businesses that way are quite happy to not have the rules change. I can imagine that the case is the same for all the currently licensed restaurants and food services in San Fransisco who would cry foul if restrictions were removed to allow more competition for the guys who got their businesses going under the old rules.