But while drug laws are primarily intended to restrict access to one resource (drugs), hotel regulations are intended to ensure that a resource (living space) i

But while drug laws are primarily intended to restrict access to one resource (drugs), hotel regulations are intended to ensure that a resource (living space) is available and only as a side effect restrict another resource (hotel rooms). The analogy also fails because while drug laws are motivated by health/moral concerns, hotel regulations are to a large extend motivated by the fact that the common resource required by both tenants and hotels is limited simply by the amount of available space in NYC,. This restraint on the available space would effect the outcome of a perfectly free market to be rather bad™, since it would turn the whole of the city (and most other popular cities) into one large hotel without any permanent residents.