[tptacek]

There's overly complex regulation, and then there's "this type of business is required to have an air filtration system and yours has been operating without one for months".

My brother just opened a coffee roaster and cafe in suburban Chicago. It's just him, my sister in law, and a couple friends, none of them with any hospitality experience. There were a lot of regulations, and they had to go several rounds with the city during their build-out. But they got through it.

The weird thing about the comment upthread is that they were "forced to install" a filtration system. How did that get past inspection? The dumb little coffee shop --- no food, no cooking smells --- had to have one just to open up.

[wtbob]

> There were a lot of regulations, and they had to go several rounds with the city during their build-out. But they got through it.

So far as you know. The problem is that it's entirely possible that there's some little-known codicil of some code which they are in violation of, the rectification of which could at the outside cost as much as they've already invested.

[tptacek]

I have friends running small food businesses in Chicago --- I was an investor in one of them, a butcher --- and while my friends have run into problems after inspections and suchlike, none of them have been shut down or really jeopardized in any way. The inspection drama I've seen has, I hate to say it, been mostly reasonable.

(The neighborhood complaints, less so.)

Am I just "lucky", and this is a commonplace problem with other people's companies?

[wglb]

For a sample size of two, one a painting and repair garage, and another a trucking company, the level of annoyance and apparent post-facto requirements for opening these businesses were right up to the threshold of madness.