Monday, January 7, 2008

FOXNews.com - Death of Main Street, One Local Zoning Law at a Time - Opinion

"Local officials who simultaneously decry big box stores and national chains while doling out burdensome regulatory structures and complicated permit processes should understand that regulatory burdens hit the smaller, independent places hardest, because they're the places that have the smallest amount of discretionary cash to hire legal aid (or, if you're really cynical, to make the appropriate campaign contributions). They're on a tighter budget and, therefore, have a smaller margin of error when it comes to hassles like delaying an opening because some bureaucrat determined their signage is a couple of inches out of compliance."
by Radley Balko

2 comments:

Mari said...

The anti-business anti-corporation mindset sadly hurts the small business as well. I was raised in a family business and well trying to abide by a myriad of regulation imagined by lawyers is difficult, and sometimes you ignore them and take your chances with getting caught.
I honestly should just blog my life story, but long story short, small business people don't have time or energy or money (we all think about the gross which ain't the same as net) to pay for the specialists to deal with whatever regulation/ roadblock cities throw up. However, chains and bigger businesses do, and they cast aside those roadblocks and we go 'curses! We need more roadblocks!' and put in more crap that is beyond the ability of the one-man/ small family business shop.
We want small business to give non-essential jobs to hard to employ neighborhood folk at living wage rates. Codes and regulations are written in legalese, a roadblock for the non-academic types or ESL people. Agencies that interact with businesses (DCRA) make the process so you might have to close shop for the day, because it's so time consuming.
And should we remove these roadblocks then politicans are called 'pro-business' with a sneer.
It is are fault we make geldings and wonder why they are not fruitful.

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