Imagine if Governor Brown said “We have to rein in drive through coffee kiosks in California. They pay low wages and we need more upscale coffee boutiques to service high-income people.” Now, imagine that President Obama said, “We necessarily have to raise the price of electricity,” and offered government loan guarantees to alternative energy companies. (Oh wait, he actually did say and do those things).
We’d call Brown and Obama centralized planners who arrogantly believe they somehow know how to plan the lives of free citizens better than the those free citizens can do for themselves.
I might even call Brown and Obama socialists, fascists, or communists if I wanted to score political points.
What then might we call the leaders of Escondido and Vista?
The UT-San Diego reports that city councils are restricting the number of “99-cent stores” . The Mayors of those cities are defending those confiscatory regulations with the type of Keynesian explanations spouted by the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Paul Krugman. To wit:
Frustrated by the proliferation of 99 Cents Only Stores and other discount chains with fixed pricing, two local cities have taken the unusual step of limiting where the stores can open and how many they’ll allow.
Leaders in those cities — Escondido and Vista — say the stores can monopolize prime retail locations, cheapen commercial districts and discourage upscale businesses from opening nearby.
Another criticism is that the stores pay low wages and cater to low-income customers, possibly exacerbating problems with poverty in cities with an abundance of the fixed-price retailers.
This is actually stunning. By what authority do Mayors or Councils have to regulate which products a retailer can sell and the price which he sells them? Certainly, general plans give councils authority for broad land-use planning but when was it appropriate for councils to decide how prime real estate locations should be allocated? When was it appropriate for Mayors or Councils to determine who gets to do business on private property based on the wage rates they pay?
This isn’t Bob Filner, shaking down a hotel association to pay union workers more money, these are the Mayors of Escondido and Vista.
In Escondido:
“It’s not about getting rid of fixed-price stores, it’s about preventing a concentration of them.” he said, noting that all existing stores have been allowed to remain open. “You need to have stores and amenities for upper-income, middle-income and lower-income residents, not just lower-income. Our residents have shown strong support for upgrading the business environment.”
In Vista:
“It’s a very hard issue, but we’re oversaturated with 99-cent stores and we just don’t think we need any more,” she said. “It’s tough to say you’d rather have a vacant storefront than a 99-cent store. But once you have an overproliferation of them, some high-end businesses will refuse to come to town.”
These are the kind of statements from 60-s era apparatchiks. If they were said by Governor Brown, President Obama, or even San Diego Mayoral candidate Alvarez, we might call them socialists, fascists, or communists if we wanted to score political points. So, what should we call the Mayors of Vista and Escondido?