How to reduce federal spending

Michelle Obama came up with it, and it's brilliant:  impose unpopular regulations on the programs funded with the federal spending until the public rejects their products or services, to the point where it becomes more cost-effective for the programs to decline the federal subsidies.  Bonus:  less regulation.

Here's another effective response to dumb, intrusive regulations.  The Bank Street Brewhouse in New Albany, Indiana, wanted to serve only beer to customers, and to encourage them to complete their meals by patronizing nearby street-food vendors.  Indiana liquor laws, however, permit a business to maintain a retail liquor license only if it operates a restaurant on the premises, defined as the ability to serve hot sandwiches, hot soup, coffee with milk, and soft drinks in a sanitary manner.  Thus was born the "Bank Street Brewhouse Indiana Statutory Compliance Restaurant Menu":

Our Famous Hotdog Sandwich
Microwaved to perfection, including both weenie
and bun, sans condiments.
$10.00
Chef Campbell's Soup of the Day
Served in a bowl.  Your choice of whichever can is
on top of the stack.
$10.00
Instant Coffee
Caffeinated only.  Available black, or black.
$5.00
Powdered Milk
With or without water.
$5.00
Sprecher Craft Soft Drinks
Different flavors . . . market pricing.

H/t AEI.

on

7 comments:

  1. Grim1:31 PM

    In Georgia where they try to split this hair, they set a percentage of income that must come from food and/or nonalcoholic drink sales. Setting a high enough percentage of non-alcoholic profits makes it possible to run a restaurant that serves beer or wine, but not a bar.

    Jackson County, for example, breaks businesses into classes by the size of their parking lots, and then assigns them a percentage accordingly. If you have 15 paved parking spots, you have to get 70% of your gross income from things other than alcohol. If you have 50 such spots, it's 50%.

    Why parking spots? Heck if I know. It seems like a very strange proxy to me.

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  2. E Hines5:57 PM

    Rules for Radicals #4 in reverse. Cool.

    Grim--are those limo parking spots, or bicycle parking spots?

    Eric Hines

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  3. Grim7:02 PM

    In Jackson County, Georgia? 4x4.

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  4. E Hines7:20 PM

    You can subdivide a 4x4 slot into a lot of bicycles slots. I was wondering if that would lower the alcohol threshold further. Always useful to out-game a regulator gamer.

    Eric Hines

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  5. Grim7:33 PM

    Yeah, except then where will your customers park their 4x4s? :)

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  6. E Hines11:04 PM

    You can get a lot of bikes into an ordinary-sized parking lot--at least of the sizes here in Plano, running half a small city block. That leaves a separate parking lot, on the other side of the bicycle lot and run by an...affiliate...of our establishment, rather than by our establishment, just a short walk away in which to park the 4x4s.

    Piece of Mississippi Mudcake.

    Eric Hines

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  7. Grim11:20 PM

    I'm not sure you can get a lot of bikes into any sized parking lot in Commerce, Georgia, but I suppose you could draw the lines however you like. You may end up with a bunch of motorcycles there. Or 4x4s, for that matter.

    ReplyDelete