Institute For Justice Fights Barriers To Entrepreneurship

Laws to license various occupations are always created in the name of “protecting the public”. That doesn’t stop bad doctors from malpractice, bad lawyers from shoddy work, or bad accountants from missing tax deductions you’re eligible for.

But it does insure that the bad ones can still make good money as long as their failures remain concealed from popular knowledge.

Seeing that having a monopoly on doing business, other occupations are eager for ”licensure”. In the name of obtaining “professional standards” licensure makes it easier to obtain professional incomes for those able to obtain licenses.

At some point it gets ridiculous and the ruse of “protecting the public” is laughable.

Take the case taken on by the Institute for Justince against in Minneapolis, MN.  Until September 30th of this year, the city in the name of “protecting the public” required people wanting to become sign hangers to run against a bureaucratic gamut few would want to tackle:

The City previously required the Police, Health, Waterworks, Building, Zoning and Fire Departments to approve any sign hanger license application, but furnished no criteria to govern this process and no safeguards against the indefinite postponement of license applications.

At least 131 applications were tied up in this limbo, and who knows how many others simply gave up at the thought of this hassle.

The Institute For Justice also has a 23 page report on how entrepreneurship is stifled statewide through massive, idiotic regulation just like this one.

Such idiocy isn’t isolated. It’s extremely common for powerful special interests to be excluded from legislation designed to keep every other business “in line”. Take bagels in Redmond, Washington for instance.

Although the City’s sign ban prevented small businesses like Blazing Bagels from advertising, it allowed real estate brokers to advertise homes for sale. To that, the 9th Circuit stated, “The City has protected outdoor signage displayed by the powerful real estate industry from an Ordinance that unfairly restricts the First Amendment rights of, among others, a lone bagel shop owner.� This one-sided ban was utterly unjustified, according to the Court, because “ubiquitous real estate signs, which can turn an inviting sidewalk into an obstacle course challenging even the most dextrous hurdler, are an even greater threat to vehicular and pedestrian safety and community aesthetics than the presence of a single employee holding an innocuous sign that reads: ‘Fresh Bagels – Now Open.’�

Have problems with zoning commissions or other government entities seeking to interfere with your rights to conduct a legal business? Are people trying to take your property for their own greedy purposes under the guise of “Eminent Domain”? You might want to contact the Institute for Justice.