Regarding Jeffrey Tucker’s post below on restaurant regulation: Whenever I see libertarian opposition to restaurant smoking bans, as was recently passed here in the District of Columbia, I always wonder why not make an issue of restaurant regulation in total as opposed to manning the barricades in defense of smoking. One reason smoking bans pass so easily is that restaurants tend to be the most over-regulated businesses at the local level. A restaurant must contend not just with health inspectors, but zoning officials, the fire department, neighborhood activists, “historic preservation” groups, and liquor licensing authorities. A restaurant is a sitting duck for any regulatory special interest that comes along.
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/4957/a-plateful-of-intervention/
A plateful of intervention
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Good points. I guess that there is not much happening in the deregulation arena on any industry. So we don’t expect things to get better and just react when things get worse. Of course, any decent libertarian would oppose all licensing and regulation.
Indeed, so is a house. I’m not quite ready to move into the RV yet, but that’s how some people keep the local bureacrats off their backs and out of their wallets. They just keep on moving!
When I was at Perkins recently, I was surprised to find that the ‘Smoking’ section had been eliminated… Well, it was still there, but apparently, the restaurant has gone smoke-free.
Wait… Did the smoking ban pass here in the captital city? I don’t even know…
But I don’t think that if it did, that it would have gone into effect yet. Perhaps Perkins just pre-empted it.
I know that some people view this (like probably most or all of your staffers, and those over at LewRockwell.com) as an issue of individual liberty, but I personally couldn’t care less if the “rights” of people to smoke in public establishments – and the rights of those establishments to set their own policies regarding smoking – were violated. With all that is going on currently, this ‘violation’ is something that all of us could live with – whether we smoke or not.
And this really wouldn’t be an issue if people would just stop smoking.
>>> ‘violation’ is something that all of us could live with – whether we smoke or not.
you mean live without?
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