It might seem like a silly thing to get worked up about, but I am steaming mad about food licensing. The NYT has covered the issue twice recently, both times making my blood boil. The first story was this one about “food court” in New York City. Technically called something like the health department tribunal, there are “a dozen administrative law judges” waiting there for supplicant-restaurant owners to kneel down and lick their boots. That’s a dozen salaries being paid to people who make our lives worse. Don’t even bother thinking about the army of power-tripping health inspectors in the field and administrative vegetables in the office making all of this possible, all of them drawing fat salaries and benefits.
At least the people interviewed for the story understand what is up. They’re small business owners, the engine of any good economy. They know they are jumping through hoops. One of them says, “You’ve got to get here really early — this place has turned into a circus, a moneymaking circus.” Ding ding ding, money for licenses into the coffers, money for an army of bureaucrats out of the coffers.
The next story starts out in LA and then jumps around to a few other cities. The common thread is how cities are dealing with the MENACE of food trucks. Some of these trucks got to escape draconian licensing laws at first and actually made their customers happy, so a bunch of greedy bureaucrats now have them squarely targeted. There is some idiotic soccer mom type quoted in the story saying that she eats from food trucks now, but that in the future, if they are graded, she would not want to eat from any C-grade trucks. You vicious little fool, you’re eating from them right now and you don’t even know it! You just know you like the food. Do you even know what makes a C from an A? Probably a bigger bribe to the health inspector.
Government licensing does not keep us safe. Government licensing is always and everywhere a phenomenon of cartel-member businesses who want to lock out competition and power-and-money-hungry politicians only too eager to help them. Write this down as fact.
So what can we do? Stop encouraging government. Utilize consumer feedback options like Yelp. Come up with your own private licensing schemes. Open an underground food business without seeking government’s approval.
We have got to get these power-tripping scumbags out of our lives. If the soccer moms want to start Soccermomistan and bow down to an army of bureaucrats like this, fine, don’t let me stop them. But just don’t make me part of it. I know good food when I taste it. I know a meaningful license when I see it. I don’t need government bashing my head in to make me understand.
The Country Estate 