4 ms·

Sounds like a place that really doesn't want small businesses.

by fridif 5y ago

Apes 5y ago
Big businesses are banned too, so really it's just about making sure those who were here first are sheltered from any newcomers. It's like Trumpism for liberals. edit because hacker news won't let me reply: Big Businesses are literally banned from most places in San Francisco. If a business is over a certain size, they cannot open a franchise in around 90% of San Francisco. Last I heard, the cutoff was 6 franchise locations -- any bigger any you can't get approval. There are a couple of areas in the city where exceptions are made, but that's a very small part of the city.
- throwaway8581 5y ago
  Big businesses can afford to swallow upfront costs like that. Individual people using their savings to start a small business can't.
- solarkraft 5y ago
  Big businesses are more likely to be able to clear that cost of entry.
- boringg 5y ago
  My favorite example is that Blue Bottle a san francisco based coffee company that started as a super tiny shop ended up becoming one of the big companies and had a difficult time opening up coffee shops in the neighborhood due to the 6 franchise location. To be fair - it did take a lot of VC money to build out the company and it has a pretty impressive footprint. Still kind of funny to get kicked out of your own home turf. FWIW - as a former SF resident I love the diversity of stores without all the large chains coming in.
- dang 5y ago
  Please make your substantive points without flamebait. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - Apes 5y ago
    Let me be crystal clear then -- there are large groups of people in San Francisco who use intolerance and fear of newcomers as a defense against competition. They use regulatory capture to prevent people from moving here, and from opening businesses here. It's massively toxic behavior. I find drawing a parallel to Trumpism to be apt, since these are core defining traits of Trumpism. Yet despite all the valid hatred that Trumpism gets, the people abusing the same things in liberal cities get no criticism at all.
    - dang 5y ago
      I'm sure you have a good underlying point but this comment is not a step away from flamewar.
jacobolus 5y ago
There are 4 or 5 other small-business ice cream places within 3 blocks of that location. As far as I’m concerned the more the merrier, and it sucks that this particular project became a nightmare for the owner, but objectively this is already one of the most small-ice-cream-shop-friendly neighborhoods on the planet.
- dwaltrip 5y ago
  To do a proper analysis, you need to look at more than just the number of existing businesses. How many total groups attempted to open a business? How long does it take to open a business? What are the costs? Have these factors changed across time? And so on. But sure, using that as a rough heuristic, I agree it doesn’t seem likely to be the worst place to open an ice cream shop.
  - jacobolus 5y ago
    Here is a city zoning map: https://sfplanning.org/sites/default/files/resources/2019-02/zoning_use_districts.pdf https://sfplanning.org/sites/default/files/resources/2019-02... I think the biggest problem is that like 3/4 of the city is zoned as low-density residential (pale yellow areas), only allowing detached single-family homes or – in some places – duplexes with low building height limits, and not allowing mixed uses like small ice cream shops, bodegas, bookstores, or cafés. As a result small businesses get crowded into a few streets zoned as “commercial corridors” (purple areas), and both residential and commercial rents are much higher than they would be if more parts of the city allowed construction of low-rise apartment buildings with bottom-floor storefronts (e.g. to RC3 from RH1/RH2 zoning). The real winners are large-scale property owners, who end up skimming a substantial margin from all economic activity in the city. If the rent weren’t so punishing, an extra couple months of permit bureaucracy wouldn’t be nearly the nightmare it is now, and existing small business owners wouldn’t be so desperate to protect slim profits. (A once-in-a-century pandemic still might kill many nascent businesses, but it’s hard to plan for that one.)

Sounds like a place that really doesn't want small businesses.

by fridif 5y ago

Sounds like a place that really doesn't want small businesses.

Apes 5y ago

Big businesses are banned too, so really it's just about making sure those who were here first are sheltered from any newcomers. It's like Trumpism for liberals. edit because hacker news won't let me reply: Big Businesses are literally banned from most places in San Francisco. If a business is over a certain size, they cannot open a franchise in around 90% of San Francisco. Last I heard, the cutoff was 6 franchise locations -- any bigger any you can't get approval. There are a couple of areas in the city where exceptions are made, but that's a very small part of the city.

throwaway8581 5y ago
Big businesses can afford to swallow upfront costs like that. Individual people using their savings to start a small business can't.
solarkraft 5y ago
Big businesses are more likely to be able to clear that cost of entry.
boringg 5y ago
My favorite example is that Blue Bottle a san francisco based coffee company that started as a super tiny shop ended up becoming one of the big companies and had a difficult time opening up coffee shops in the neighborhood due to the 6 franchise location. To be fair - it did take a lot of VC money to build out the company and it has a pretty impressive footprint. Still kind of funny to get kicked out of your own home turf. FWIW - as a former SF resident I love the diversity of stores without all the large chains coming in.
dang 5y ago
Please make your substantive points without flamebait. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Apes 5y ago
  Let me be crystal clear then -- there are large groups of people in San Francisco who use intolerance and fear of newcomers as a defense against competition. They use regulatory capture to prevent people from moving here, and from opening businesses here. It's massively toxic behavior. I find drawing a parallel to Trumpism to be apt, since these are core defining traits of Trumpism. Yet despite all the valid hatred that Trumpism gets, the people abusing the same things in liberal cities get no criticism at all.
  - dang 5y ago
    I'm sure you have a good underlying point but this comment is not a step away from flamewar.

jacobolus 5y ago

There are 4 or 5 other small-business ice cream places within 3 blocks of that location. As far as I’m concerned the more the merrier, and it sucks that this particular project became a nightmare for the owner, but objectively this is already one of the most small-ice-cream-shop-friendly neighborhoods on the planet.

dwaltrip 5y ago
To do a proper analysis, you need to look at more than just the number of existing businesses. How many total groups attempted to open a business? How long does it take to open a business? What are the costs? Have these factors changed across time? And so on. But sure, using that as a rough heuristic, I agree it doesn’t seem likely to be the worst place to open an ice cream shop.
- jacobolus 5y ago
  Here is a city zoning map: https://sfplanning.org/sites/default/files/resources/2019-02/zoning_use_districts.pdf https://sfplanning.org/sites/default/files/resources/2019-02... I think the biggest problem is that like 3/4 of the city is zoned as low-density residential (pale yellow areas), only allowing detached single-family homes or – in some places – duplexes with low building height limits, and not allowing mixed uses like small ice cream shops, bodegas, bookstores, or cafés. As a result small businesses get crowded into a few streets zoned as “commercial corridors” (purple areas), and both residential and commercial rents are much higher than they would be if more parts of the city allowed construction of low-rise apartment buildings with bottom-floor storefronts (e.g. to RC3 from RH1/RH2 zoning). The real winners are large-scale property owners, who end up skimming a substantial margin from all economic activity in the city. If the rent weren’t so punishing, an extra couple months of permit bureaucracy wouldn’t be nearly the nightmare it is now, and existing small business owners wouldn’t be so desperate to protect slim profits. (A once-in-a-century pandemic still might kill many nascent businesses, but it’s hard to plan for that one.)