[bsimpson]

This is the thing that blew my mind last time:

The shoreline of San Francisco is a national park (donated when the military base here closed). There's a restaurant on the shore called Cliff House, whose landlord is the US government.

During the shutdown, the government forced the restaurant, a private establishment, to close. The owners and the kitchen staff were not allowed to make a living. And because they aren't government employees, they don't get any restitution when the government is funded again.

[mch82]

Private companies also behave this way. It’s not unique to government.

If a mall shuts down, the stores don’t get to stay open. If a restaurant closes early, the waitstaff doesn’t get paid for missed hours. If budget gets tied up in other projects, competing projects get cancelled or deferred. If customer payments are late, new work & paychecks can’t be released to employees.

Edit: Also important to list the high percentage of startups that fail and layoff employees, often employees who worked under market value in exchange for equity.

[Dylan16807]

> If a mall shuts down, the stores don’t get to stay open.

Good luck blocking access while they're still renting. I can't even plausibly imagine that happening in a strip mall, where the entrance to the store is outside. Which is the best analogy to a park.

Everything else you mentioned was about employees, which is very different from renters.

[zeveb]

During the last shutdown, the executive branch deliberately tried to make it as painful as possible, whether or not it actually needed to be, as a political ploy. I recall in another instance it spent resources to block access to something which people could have just walked across.

I'm sincerely curious if the executive branch this time is pulling the same sort of shenanigans.

[mcv]

Why would a lack of funding for the government suspend a rent agreement? That's actually money flowing into the government. Why does that need to be shut down?

[bonesss]

Without knowing the specifics: renting land from the feds inside a national park is not entirely the same as renting land from a private person in a commercial zone.

From a park-management perspective services offered inside a national park close when the park closes. The park-restaurant doesn't get to reopen that park or its services any more than the hotdog vendors force Wrigley Field to open on the weekdays...

Just like a mall closing for safety reasons: even though there is a buck to be made there are also liabilities and requirements. If the park isn't offering its rangers/personnel/management/responsibility then they don't want to be simultaneously advertising to the public that they're open for food sales. They're not open, they're closed.

[bsimpson]

The weird part is that there's not exactly a toll plaza - it's totally integrated into the city.

I presume they made some argument about rangers not being available or something, but there was really no reason it needed to close. It's on a public street, and in a city with emergency services.

[refurb]

My guess is politics. If you want voters to push to end the shutdown, make it hurt regardless if the shutdown requires it.

This also happened with national parks. They actually chained up the entrances during the shutdown as if people can't access a park if the gov't is shutdown.

[askvictor]

I'm curious: who actually checked on whether they were closed?

[logfromblammo]

"I said powerless to help you, not punish you." --Chief Wiggum

Maybe ensuring that the economic hostages of a shutdown will actually suffer is an essential government function?

It wouldn't surprise me if there were a few people trespassing on closed national parklands right now, without incidents. And a few of them might even be furloughed employees.

[alkonaut]

The way I understood things is that if you are lucky (e.g. if you are military) you get paid when government is funded. If you are less lucky, you are simply furloughed and NOT paid for the time the government was shut down. For example: civilian employees in the military.

(The fact that the dysfunction alone of US government needs a whole dictionary is amusing: gerrymander, filibuster, furlough, ....)

[dzhiurgis]

Ohhh Cliff House was one of my key xp when visiting San Francisco!

If US is owner and they shut down the restaurant place, don't they loose money by not making rent?! How is that making sense?

[StudentStuff]

The upside here is that you can visit national parks for free while the shutdown is ongoing, without the threat of a ranger fining or detaining you! While I don't roll with the A team, I do appreciate some of the philosophy.

[codingdave]

But also without the safety net of having rangers around to know you are out in the backcountry, and come looking for you if you get hurt and don't make it back to the main areas. Personally, I carry emergency beacons when I'm out in the wilderness, but that is something the average tourist exploring the parks doesn't have.