[erikpukinskis]

You can pretend the conversation is about safety but there's more to it than that. There are legitimate safety regulations, which could be monitored with a $100 random annual inspection. And then there are the actual regulations which are usually just encoding the business practices of the incumbent into law so that other companies with other advantages are impossible to make legal, regardless of safety.

If it were actually about safety, the "hotel commission" would try to make it as easy and as cheap as possible to get inspected. The fact that they don't suggests it's more about gatekeeping.

[matt4077]

Sure, all regulations look like regulatory red tape strangulating the free market.

Until you look at actual, individual, regulations–which tend to be codified common sense.

[erikpukinskis]

Maybe on a per rule basis they tend to be common sense. But if even one rule out of 100 is an unnecessary encoding of business model, then requiring a permit is a de facto monopoly granted to the incumbents.

So even if most rules are common sense, that doesn't change the fact that most permit requirements are predatory business tactics.

I want to feed and house the homeless in my neighborhood but it's illegal due to "safety" concerns. Apparently them sleeping on the street and shitting in the bushes is safer than me building them a tiny house with a composting toilet and a wash basin.