You mean, you think the natural reaction to having a self-important 75-year-old with no experience in the building trades costing me fifty thousand dollars in revenue needlessly should be, what? Outrage? Oh yeah. But here's the thing. You learn, after you've been through this clusterfuck, that pretty much everyone else has to get through this clusterfuck in order to compete with you. And if they don't, it means competition can spring up from anywhere. There are only like 12 birth centers in the entire state of Washington. And granted - the other 11 didn't have to deal with nearly this much bullshit. And granted - the ones that follow probably won't either. But they'll have to deal with a portion of it. I mean - it's been a fucking year since we signed the lease. More. It's been more than a fucking year since we demo'd the old space. And maybe, just maybe, we'll have furniture in there before the end of the year. But the whole fucking reason we started down this road is one of my wife's best friends went from "I think I should open a birth center" to grand opening in less than six weeks down in California. And now she's got a competitor a quarter mile down the street. Sending basket-case transports to the local hospital. Turning the EMTs against midwives in the whole community. Getting angry letters to the local paper written. One of the reasons we came up to Seattle is down where we lived, we were a 15-minute drive (without traffic) from eight birth centers. Five have since closed. Know why there are so many food trucks in LA? Because there are no barriers to starting a food truck in LA. Know why everyone in LA loses their shit over every new restaurant? Because turning one restaurant into another restaurant takes between 18 and 24 months, assuming everything goes off without a hitch. Commercial real estate in Venice, CA runs $120-$240 per square foot per year, triple net. A decent restaurant is 2000sqft minimum. And you're going to suck down 2 years of that before you get to start making any money back. You aren't opening a restaurant unless you mean it. And now you know why that burger costs $18.
Well sure... I mean, that's the point of us detailing our horror stories. The problem is that the existing system "works" (for a certain definition of "works") and there are other problems to solve. The inspector forcing cgod to build his trash shrine is never going to be reprimanded for his moronic idea, because he doesn't report to anyone, and - after all - nobody has died / been maimed / or been given cancer by cgod's trash area. So the inspector did his job well. How do YOU know that all those things weren't absolutely necessary to keep the public safe? After all, YOU aren't an inspector! What do YOU know, little man?!? sarcasm, of course But you get the point... Politicians are graded on the amount of legislation they introduce. If a commissioner, legislator, or senator doesn't introduce any new legislation, then they aren't doing their job, right? So they create endless pages of pointless shit regulation that doesn't affect anybody ... except your local coffee shop owner, who - instead of opening her shop for $60k, wound up paying $150k, with all the bullshit the inspector made up to whine about - and now it is two years later, and the big loan payments are coming due, and Starbucks opened up with a drive-thru two blocks away, and her business has tanked, and some punk broke the $3500 front window, but she can't afford to make a claim against her insurance because they'd raise her rates, and she had to start working the evening shift, because she lost another barista to night school and she can't take the time to interview/hire/train someone new, because the glass guy is going to be here tomorrow to fix the window, but she has to stay late for the contractor to come and build some sort of wood over the broken window, so people don't loot the place at night, and... And NONE of this is made up. This is my friend's coffee shop. I guess people just need to walk into privately run, mom and pop shops, and stop... take a look around ... and appreciate just what it takes to make ANY of this shit happen. "But OMG, it's, like, $1.50 more than Starbucks! Total fucking ripoff..."
It was super-hilarious in my home town because in order to advance up the hierarchy at Los Alamos National Labs you had to demonstrate "civic participation." Which basically meant running for county council. And then introducing legislation so that you can prove that you were participating civically. Nerdy-ass theoretical physicists attempting civic participation came up with legislation including (but not limited to) - A cat leash law. Yep. Tried to pass a law requiring leashes for all cats. - A dogshit law. Thou shalt not have more than 5lbs of fecal matter on your lawn or thou shalt face a $40 a day fine. This one ran aground when the subject of enforcement came up - nobody wanted to budget for an official dogshit weigher. - A weed law. Thou shalt not permit any volunteer species of vegetation to grow taller than 18" under penalty of a $50 a day fine. This one actually passed - and then they tried to fine someone for "weeds" and he argued that "volunteer species" includes trees and that he was being singled out unfairly. It pretty much blew up and was never mentioned again when a rival councilman pointed out that the Lab's million dollars' worth of native plantings qualified as weeds.Politicians are graded on the amount of legislation they introduce. If a commissioner, legislator, or senator doesn't introduce any new legislation, then they aren't doing their job, right?
Tell your friend this. She sells coffee. Starbucks sells a lifestyle. They are in two different businesses as long as she has a good product. It doesn't hurt to love your coustimers as people. It shines through, especially when the other guys are there for profit an wages.
Lol, a Starbucks is moving right down the street from me, I have to walk in the street on my way to work because the construction is blocking the side walk. I'm not worried about Starbucks. I'm finally making some of the improvements I wanted to do in the beginning that didn't happen when I opened because the permit office soaked me so bad. If there is one change I'd like to see in the process is not getting different messages every round of review. If I had known what they wanted right off the bat it would have been much easier.
Around here, it's a balance of what you introduce and what you block. Unfortunately, it seems sometimes voters lack scrutiny.Politicians are graded on the amount of legislation they introduce. If a commissioner, legislator, or senator doesn't introduce any new legislation, then they aren't doing their job, right?