No Commerce without Government Sanction: The People's Republic of San Francisco

In the fascist age of America, the government in San Francisco is now telling people how they can and cannot use their own private property when conducting safe and publicly amenable business.  If I had the time and money, I would be inclined to purchase property there just to use it to break the law.

This is not Nazi Germany, fools, it is America.  The government of San Francisco apparently doesn't see the distinction.

 No Commerce Without Government Sanction? AirBnb Law Sets Ugly Precedent

Alex Daley, Chief Technology Investment Strategist

7 November 2014

It may sound like something out of a fascist regime, but that seems to be the direction we’re headed in America. In the country where Marshmallow Fluff went from a home kitchen to a multimillion-dollar business, it’s anathema to think that today’s laws would make the whole endeavor illegal from the get-go. But evidence continues to mount that we have gone decidedly anti-commerce.

The latest turn of events: the People’s Republic of San Francisco is pushing a law to severely restrict the use of HomeAway and AirBnb-style hotelier sites. Prodded by angry neighbors—or by the hotel lobby, do you think?—the city decided to permit only residents of the city to use their property as such. Nonresident owners are being told they cannot do short-term rentals, only long-term ones.

The city council says they’re doing it to prevent or lessen a housing shortage in the city. Yet more evidence of government protecting entrenched business models (hotels in this case… just like the ludicrous laws to prevent car manufacturers from selling directly instead of through dealers, meant to slow down Tesla’s onslaught). Thankfully, HomeAway is suing to block the law… as are others.

(Curiously, AirBnb isn’t suing, as the law is actually designed to support its business model, requiring the companies arranging rentals to collect taxes centrally, which it can do; HomeAway can’t do that without a big change to its business. This is, at least, according to HomeAway.)

It reminds me of the ludicrous battle that occurred down the street from my place in Vermont, where neighbors were mad at The Alchemist, brewers of top-ranked microbrew Heady Topper. Its creators were forced out of their small brewing site by neighbors who didn’t like the traffic from customers. The business was drummed out of town with help from the zoning board. Yet the company couldn’t move to the next town over because a competitor started making a squawk about some rare bird that supposedly nests where The Alchemist wanted to build its new location. The whole debacle is still unfolding many months later.

Is this the world we now live in, where success is punishable by law, unless you grease the right palms? Let’s all hope that intelligence prevails in the judiciary of California (just typing that out is depressing), and it upholds the ability of people to engage in commerce without permission. If not, I suspect we’re screwed as a nation. If only our lawmakers would focus on protecting us from real threats like the unprosecuted frauds of the mortgage debacle, instead of piling on superfluous new regulations that just deter or extort business.