Lathrop’s award winning hot dog cart law

The old story goes:  A man has one good arm and a withered arm.  So he prays, “Lord, make my arm like the other one!”  In a puff of lighting, his other arm is withered.

The Lathrop hot dog cart law is an attempt to punish mobile food vendors “because it’s fair.”  The owners of stores and restaurants don’t think it’s fair someone should be able to compete with them.

The restaurants complain that they have to jump through hoops, get cumbersome permits, pay exorbitant fees and taxes, it can take years just to get a permit to operate (unless you are a big corporation with a good legal department, then it’s easy.)  So, in order to remedy this the wise council decided that the hot dog stands should be similarly burdened.

What’s wrong with this?  A few things.  First, you can’t create prosperity by restrictions on commerce!  The “job market” isn’t exactly good right now, and the last thing the city needs to do to “help people” is to outlaw their attempts to make a living.

Also, fairness is a slippery concept that mostly exists in the mind of whoever is coming up with it.  The restaurant guy is “irate” how dare that kid with the cart sell tacos or ice cream?  He’s “taking away my customers” and I had to pay all these taxes and utilities and get permits to open this restaurant – It’s not fair they whine!

But the guy on the bicycle is probably thinking “it’s not fair” he gets to sit in an air conditioned building with gas and electricity and tables and can sell all sorts of things I can’t. 

Well, what’s stopping the restaurant guy from getting a bicycle and going pedaling around the city if he thinks they have it so great?  He doesn’t because he and the push cart guy have made choices.  Each weighed the costs and the benefits and decided what was best.  Each came to different conclusions but maybe that’s just the way it is.  But the ignorant and greedy restaurant bullies, rather than accepting their own choices, whine to the City Council to do something about them.  (Whaaaaa!)

The council members who voted in favor of this asinine law have earned The Manteca Live! Horse’s Ass award.  It’s nothing personal, it’s just that it was a stupid thing to do.  So stupid that intelligent people shouldn’t even have to discuss it.

Maybe if I feel like it I’ll list the problems with the new law (it’s poorly written, poorly intentioned, and just plain dumb) in another log entry.  But for now, let me point out that it’s not just my opinion that the purpose of the law is to “burden” the food vendors, in the staff report it actually says that.  (It talks about “equity” with “other business owners.”)

I have an idea, you can read it for yourself!  (see pages 49 to 60).

“Woo” businesses? Start by treating current business properly.

Lathrop is attempting to “woo” business?  The new slogan should be: Come to Lathrop, spend all your life savings investing in a business.  Don’t worry, it’s safe because we probably won’t just wake up one day and decide to crush your business like we did to the mobile food vendors.

Lathrop wants to woo businesses in earnest

p.s Oh I forgot to add that former Lathrop Mayor Gloryanna Rhodes wins the “I’m living in a parallel universe” award for this statement:

“Everything in Manteca today was projected for Lathrop. Stockton is booming. Tracy is bringing people in.”

When she uttered the words “Stockon is booming!” a shaft of light shown down and she was quickly beamed up to the mothership.

It's back!

I thought the street vendor issue was settled in Oct 2007 at this public meeting. Those who spoke about the issue were strongly in support of the "street vendors" and favored minimal licensing or interference with them.

This week the issue comes up again in Lathrop. The "first reading" was passed without much fanfare a few weeks ago.

All the same burdensome regulations rejected two years ago are back like the thing in a horror movie that you think you killed but it keeps coming at you.

Matt Browne Hearing

This is the condensed version. (some coarse language)

The Lathrop Show

Here a citizen gives helpful commentary.

Lathropart

Last night after the council meeting Mayor Sayles beamed with pride as she gave some of the press a "special tour" of the creativity of Lathrop citizens.

At right is a sneak preview of the mayor's prize winning art! I wasn't sure what she called it at first. Chaotic Sun? Psychotic Sun? Oh, the actual name is Complex Sun. I think I may have called it "Metal Cat Hacked This Up" but that's just me.

An additional image:
Mayor Sayles points out special features in some of the painting/photographs. I think. Hey, wait a sec... where's my monocle?

Lathrop participants complain

Here some citizens rightly complain about Manteca Live's juvenile commentary. Dan is right, we aren't in junior high. Our previous satire was beneath us and we apologize for any implication or insult.

Here is the actual video of the Lathrop meeting so you can see there was no evidence of wild chimpanzees.

Correction: rumor Lathrop mayor attacked by wild chimpanzee false.

Correction: The previous article ( Mayor Sayles attacked by pack of wild chimpanzees at council meeting, Manteca Live Mar 17, 2009) was found to be in error and has been removed. We regret the error.

After wildlife biologists examined still frames from the council meeting video, it was determined that the attackers were not a pack of wild chimpanzees but were former mayoral office seekers known as The League of Extraordinary Candidates whose super powers, when combined, can mimic political attack.

And instead of reading "the mayors body was dismembered and pieces shipped to Oakdale, Stockton, 'Alpine County' and Washington D.C." the sentence should read "The mayor was unharmed in the attack and will be travelling to represent the city's interests in Washington D.C."

We regret any inconvenience the error may have caused.

Again with the shrimp

This is the second time the Manteca Bulletin has complained bitterly about the "extravagance" of the Lathrop party organizers. Now it's the shrimp cocktails that's the "problem." You would think the mayor just bought a private jet and is being served shrimp cocktail by oiled Laotian boys while cutting deals with ex-Enron execs.

This falls under the classification of "tell the people what sounds like it should outrage them." Just look at that shrimp! The parties! This kind of opinion/reporting is why the public is so misinformed as to how tax dollars are spent.

(I previously mentioned last week in comments to the Sun Post that everyone at the school board meeting wanted the board members to cut their pay and give it to the poor workers sitting next to them. The public was ignorant that the poor worker next to them was making over forty times as much money as the board members. )

Did Mr. Wyatt ever consider the cost of the personnel and building being used for this public reception? And what benefits to the public there may be? Is the plate of shrimp cocktail (a few dollars at save-mart) really "the problem?"

All the high level city people (except the mayor and council!) are being paid well, roughly in the neighborhood $50 to $100 each hour. Let's just take round figures, let's say $80/hour for high level administrators and department heads. How many of them are there at these receptions open to the public? A dozen? (e.g., the head of planning, the police and fire chiefs, city clerk, city manager, etc., etc.). Now add in the cost of the building. From one source, the rough estimate is $500 for "a meeting." (I think the mortgage payment for the new city hall is in the ballpark of $2,000 each day.)

Let's just round it off and the back-of-the-napkin guesstimate for the cost of any meeting with all the city officials present is several thousand dollars each hour. Save that napkin, we're going to need it for the shrimp plate that cost 32 dollars or that terrible plate of cupcakes that costs $12.

Is the cost of the shrimp plate and the cupcakes really significant or a problem? And isn't there some benefit to the public? Think about it: Go down to city hall and ask for a meeting, for an hour, where you can meet with and ask questions of your city leaders. All of them: the mayor, the city manager, the department of tree trimming, whatever. Go ahead. Call up city hall and ask what that will cost you. I'll save you the trouble: you can't afford it.

But the so-called "wasteful extravagant" reception - which is open to you - is the same thing. Anyone (even you!) gets to saunter on in and meet with all those people in a cordial setting. What if you have a problem with your neighbor's chihuahua yapping all night or you want to build a swimming pool for your ferret or think some law is wrong and needs to be changed? There's your chance to -- if not discuss the issue at length -- at least meet people who you can later make an appointment with and discuss things.

Can a plate of shrimp help educate the public?

Many people are so uninformed they don't realize simple things about how their government works. Like, for example, they don't realize the mayor doesn't decide everything on a day-to-day basis. They may not even know there's a city manager or what he does or what the other departments do. The receptions are a great education for the public about how their government works. I can't help but think that if there are complaints with some department, it can never hurt to meet first in a cordial way, share a shrimp cocktail before talking about what the problem is.

And if having a plate of cupcakes there helps bring in the public then it's money well spent.

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We haven't even talked about the distortions in the Bulletin hit piece.

The real purpose of the receptions is to recognize some achievement of city people. It builds morale. How would you like to work for some enterprise for 20, 30 or more years and then they throw you a retirement reception and say "sorry there's not even a cupcake here -- we didn't want to waste 12 dollars on you. Have a glass of water. At the water fountain."

The other distortion in the Bulletin diatribe was the implication that these were city fat cats stuffing themselves with your tax-paid-for "shrimp cocktail." The implication is that it's some expensive treat (which it is not) and that it was for them. But really, it's for the participants at the party -- the person being honored and YOU, the taxpayer. If it's open to the public, that's a completely different thing -- why didn't Editor Wyatt mention this?