I'm not gonna sit here and say the process and expense is at least some theoretical optimal level everywhere that exactly balances public interest with whatever benefits accrue to society from having more restaurants with lower barrier to entry, but this article is presupposing the point with "excessive." That is hard to quantify. It's not like there is no reason for these things.
I actually helped a friend open a restaurant in Long Beach, CA a few decades back and among the reasons for the expense:
- You're serving food, so there has to be some check that you're procuring food that isn't spoiled and you're properly storing and preparing it
- Anything communally served (i.e. buffet style) needs to have safeguards in place to ensure you're not creating disease vectors
- You're generating a bunch of biological waste and need to dispose of that properly
- The cooking process puts out a bunch of waste grease that needs to be trapped and kept out of the normal water disposal system so you're not clogging everyone else's pipes
- A kitchen is quite obviously a fire hazard and needs to comply with codes preventing fires
- If you're not providing your own parking lot, your customers are going to be parking on the street and someone needs to pay for that additional congestion to prevent externalities
There is no way to automate the inspection process, so humans need to do it, and I'm not gonna say these are super high-skill jobs, but code inspectors still need to be paid. What other way is there to do this except paying upfront before you have revenue?
So again, maybe this exact number of steps is excessive, maybe the in-person visits are excessive, maybe the expense is excessive, but simply enumerating them doesn't demonstrate that. What are the steps? What is on the forms? What is the purpose of these visits? How are these fees being spent?
I actually helped a friend open a restaurant in Long Beach, CA a few decades back and among the reasons for the expense:
- You're serving food, so there has to be some check that you're procuring food that isn't spoiled and you're properly storing and preparing it
- Anything communally served (i.e. buffet style) needs to have safeguards in place to ensure you're not creating disease vectors
- You're generating a bunch of biological waste and need to dispose of that properly
- The cooking process puts out a bunch of waste grease that needs to be trapped and kept out of the normal water disposal system so you're not clogging everyone else's pipes
- A kitchen is quite obviously a fire hazard and needs to comply with codes preventing fires
- If you're not providing your own parking lot, your customers are going to be parking on the street and someone needs to pay for that additional congestion to prevent externalities
There is no way to automate the inspection process, so humans need to do it, and I'm not gonna say these are super high-skill jobs, but code inspectors still need to be paid. What other way is there to do this except paying upfront before you have revenue?
So again, maybe this exact number of steps is excessive, maybe the in-person visits are excessive, maybe the expense is excessive, but simply enumerating them doesn't demonstrate that. What are the steps? What is on the forms? What is the purpose of these visits? How are these fees being spent?