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If your service involves public health or safety then you should be regulated.

by llukas 8y ago

landryraccoon 8y ago
It’s a tradeoff. I’m kind of bummed that the West doesn’t have the kind of small street food cart culture that is common in Asia. I’ve eaten at dozens of them and never gotten sick.
- pandapower2 8y ago
  I have a theory that the largely unregulared street food culture survives due to how rare it is for people in cities (in particular) to cook for themselves. Firstly, you have a large population who are going to purchase food several times a day. That means a food vendor can potentially establish themselves in single location or a neighborhood and build a base of repeat customers, customers who may purchase from them several times a week, if not every day. Beyond that direct repeat business, regulars will order from their favorite vendor even when they have no queue of waiting customers. That initial group of regulars around a vendor waiting for their order sends a strong positive signal to other potential customers who may not usually buy food in this area. If you dont know the vendors, buying from a vendor with no customers is a risky move. Next, because buying meals is such a common part of everyone's life it becomes a common conversation. That provides an additional chance to reward quality vendors while punishing low quality vendors. That environment strongly punishes food vendors that make their customers sick in particular. Your regulars will abandon you and bad mouth you to all their friends and coworkers. Meanwhile, in the west mobile food vendors rarely have that kind of repeat clientele. Most customers will purchase food from them precisely once. And even if you complain to your friends, chances are that so much time will have passed before they encounter that vendor that they will have forgotten the conversation.
bigiain 8y ago
Didn't Portland (OR) come up with a reasonable compromise to regulate "food trucks" somewhat less rigorously than "restaurants" and then leaving it up to a (hopefully informed) consumer to choose? I'm perfectly happy to take my personal food safety responsibility myself when visiting, say, Thailand - some of their street food is _amazing_, and I'm sure some of it is not very safe. I've never "rolled the dice" wrong there, using just a small modicum of common sense and trustworthy local advice... (I'd eat pretty much anything deep fried, pretty much nothing raw, and lean on locals for advice on choices in between...)
- wallace_f 8y ago
  Yea. I find it incredible that when news hit that Thailand was cracking down on food trucks, same as has been done in America, it was a big enough injustice of personal freedom and free markets that it even hit the front page of HN. However, criticize the same thing in America and my comment was extremely controversial. I think that says something about how much faith people put into precedent and authority.

If your service involves public health or safety then you should be regulated.

by llukas 8y ago

If your service involves public health or safety then you should be regulated.

It’s a tradeoff. I’m kind of bummed that the West doesn’t have the kind of small street food cart culture that is common in Asia. I’ve eaten at dozens of them and never gotten sick.

pandapower2 8y ago
I have a theory that the largely unregulared street food culture survives due to how rare it is for people in cities (in particular) to cook for themselves. Firstly, you have a large population who are going to purchase food several times a day. That means a food vendor can potentially establish themselves in single location or a neighborhood and build a base of repeat customers, customers who may purchase from them several times a week, if not every day. Beyond that direct repeat business, regulars will order from their favorite vendor even when they have no queue of waiting customers. That initial group of regulars around a vendor waiting for their order sends a strong positive signal to other potential customers who may not usually buy food in this area. If you dont know the vendors, buying from a vendor with no customers is a risky move. Next, because buying meals is such a common part of everyone's life it becomes a common conversation. That provides an additional chance to reward quality vendors while punishing low quality vendors. That environment strongly punishes food vendors that make their customers sick in particular. Your regulars will abandon you and bad mouth you to all their friends and coworkers. Meanwhile, in the west mobile food vendors rarely have that kind of repeat clientele. Most customers will purchase food from them precisely once. And even if you complain to your friends, chances are that so much time will have passed before they encounter that vendor that they will have forgotten the conversation.

bigiain 8y ago

Didn't Portland (OR) come up with a reasonable compromise to regulate "food trucks" somewhat less rigorously than "restaurants" and then leaving it up to a (hopefully informed) consumer to choose? I'm perfectly happy to take my personal food safety responsibility myself when visiting, say, Thailand - some of their street food is _amazing_, and I'm sure some of it is not very safe. I've never "rolled the dice" wrong there, using just a small modicum of common sense and trustworthy local advice... (I'd eat pretty much anything deep fried, pretty much nothing raw, and lean on locals for advice on choices in between...)

wallace_f 8y ago
Yea. I find it incredible that when news hit that Thailand was cracking down on food trucks, same as has been done in America, it was a big enough injustice of personal freedom and free markets that it even hit the front page of HN. However, criticize the same thing in America and my comment was extremely controversial. I think that says something about how much faith people put into precedent and authority.