Bureaucrat scuffs dream of homeless shoe shiner — Apparently SF bureaucrats comb the newspaper to find guys like this to rip off. I’d love to find out who this dipshit woman is who made this guy get a permit. No wonder nobody can get themselves out of poverty with people like her around. She probably got a commendation.
He sleeps under a bridge, washes in a public bathroom and was panhandling for booze money 11 months ago, but now Larry Moore is the best-dressed shoeshine man in the city. When he gets up from his cardboard mattress, he puts on a coat and tie. It’s a reminder of how he has turned things around.
In fact, until last week it looked like Moore was going to have saved enough money to rent a room and get off the street for the first time in six years. But then, in a breathtakingly clueless move, an official for the Department of Public Works told Moore that he has to fork over the money he saved for his first month’s rent to purchase a $491 sidewalk vendor permit.
“I had $573 ready to go,” Moore said, who needs $600 for the rent. “This tore that up. But I’ve been homeless for six years. Another six weeks isn’t going to kill me.”
The bureaucrat told Moore that she found out about his business after reading about his success in this paper.
This whole story is rich since San Francisco is crawling with beggars, panhandlers and weirdos. Heaven forbid someone want to work for a living. And why is the permit so expensive? Probably the same reason a parking meter costs 25-cents for five minutes. This city is the worst.
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SF Director of Public Works, Ed Reiskin
Wow, you’ve discovered that regulations hurt the little guy.
I wonder if this lady would take any action if she saw in the newspaper an illegal immigrant discussing how he wants to get reduced tuition rates.
San Francisco is to California what California is to the United States. At total fucking embarrassment. I was born here. Let me OUT! I have three years until my pension, then it is a normal state for me. This one is completely off of the choo choo train tracks.
The arguments FOR this nonsense are STUPID. The reality is…if I were selling hot dogs, shining shoes, etc…..and were doing a great job, good customer service, good price, etc., even if there were 100 other people doing “it”….the competition would have to exceed or equal my service/quality. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be so profitable. Competition is only bad in this ‘feel good, self esteem’ driven mindset. Our country is failing because small business is overburdened with taxes, special taxes, permits, more taxes, and rules, regulations, forms, standing in line, filing more forms, paying MORE taxes, and government sticking it’s fat red nose into everything. Our government does NOT support small business..it does everything under the sun to undermine individuals endeavoring to earn money. Why? Probably because big corporate business is in BED with government, and don’t want to compete and have the bar raised regarding — customer service, quality of service, and quality of products.
We’re screwed, and most of these comments aren’t getting it. This isn’t a SF thing..it’s a COUNTRYWIDE THING. Wake up!
check out some of the salaries for these public “servants?”… un-effing believable!
http://myprops.org/content/S.F.-is-gonna-be-broke-whether-you-like-it-or-not/
# 1 Patrick,
“Liberal gov’ts specialize in keeping the impoverished down. No surprise here.”
And Conservatives specialize in dumbing down the populace to ensure the idiots vote for another Bush.
The newspaper (examiner I guess) should treat every newsworthy human interest story with equal care and detail. When is the detailed (you know name, address, phone #, Email, IP, ISP info, etc) story on old (what was your adjective?) going to be printed. After all, she is a “public” employ.
nunyac
Yeah, anarchy is the solution!
Let’s allow anyone to setup a sidewalk stand anywhere, no matter how narrow the sidewalk or how inconvenient to the pedestrians.
Let’s outlaw permits for food vendors so that there isn’t at least some minimum measure of hygene and regular inspection.
Let’s make Fisherman’s Wharf even more unvisitable by allowing any ‘clown’ to ‘perform’ in the middle of the sidewalk and hassle tourists, regardless of skill.
Heck, let’s just allow anyone to claim any piece of sidewalk as their ‘office’ and panhandle from there.
Limiting the number of ‘entreprenours’ of this type to a specific quantity and specific locations is necessary, and having them buy a permit is perfectly reasonable.
The city is willing to issue him a permit, at the same price and conditions as anyone else… if you son’t agree, how about fronting the guy the $600 and having him pay you back over a 1 year period at no interest (Yeah, I didn’t think so).
Reality Check is right…..screw this guy.
He’s relying on city services without paying for them. Sorry to slap down a Republican wet dream, but “bootstrap” stories are usually stories about people ignoring health and safety regulations that have been deemed to be necessary. He needs to apply for the help that they city offers and go through the system. there are a lot of hardworking civil servants who are waiting to help him…not that he’s paid for any of it with his unregulated, tax-dodging leeching.
I think he should be fined for operating a business without a permit and be required to pay the back sales taxes he owes.
John C (and others):
I’ll make you a deal (you know my email). You’ve got a paypal account and lots of people read your blog. I will pony up $100 to pay this guy’s stupid city fee. I challenge anyone else reading this to do the same thing.
This is a stupid fee and the bureaucrat is an idiot but I don’t care. This guy has gone 98% of the way there and I’m happy to help him with the last 2%.
I am serious about this. I’m game if anyone else is game.
It is a fact that the poor are just another cash crop for government jobs. If a guy on public assistance gets a dollar he gets whacked 6 dollars from all the benefits he’s getting. It is designed so no one crawls out. If there is no poor there is no cushy government jobs, which is the REAL welfare.
Able bodied single white males do not qualify for most assistance.
I read an economics book in written in the 60′s where it said there was a requirement of 10% unemployed ready to work at a moments notice to compensate for market changes. Since this unemployment is apparently built in, I do think the industry should support the ready work force.
Hey guys look on the bright side it may be a little while before our new leader and Congress gives us value added taxes.
Does California already have those? If not they missed one.
The whole idea sounds like a good way to put people out of business to me.
19, 20.
So, all those franchisees at the food court just walked in and set up shop? Or did they go through a registration, licensing, lease agreements and the rest? Hmmmmmm…..
28 made a good point. Anarchy is not civilization…
This guy did not have a permit, therefore he is not a shoeshine guy. For hat matter, does he have a valid panhandling license?
Damn these loose cannon entrepreneurs! When will they realize they need government permission to earn a living and turn over most of their earnings in taxes? It is California, after all!
I hope she gets fired for reading the newspaper when she was supposed to be working
Its easy to rail at the enforcers of law…but they are not granted the power to determine when to apply it, when not to.
Rather, its the law that’s at fault.
The stupidity manifest is a microcosm of the country at large…the spelt fish, foreign to this country, invaded our aqueduct, a man made waterway meant to deliver water to farmers, and the law recently cut off water to the farmers, lest this foreign invader die in a man made water way.
Stupid is as stupid does.
California has untold riches in oil wealthy right off its coast…yet it wallows in bankruptcy because the ECOTERRORISTS won’t allow drilling.
Multiply that across the country, and its easy to see why new business creation, normally a difficult thing to do because of regulations, is often impossible because of stupid regulations.
President Bush allowed Bernanke and Paulson to chuck the free market out, and we’ve been screwed ever since. If Ronald Reagan were president, he would have done what he did when he fixed Jimmy Carter’s depression, cut taxes, regulations, so new business would form…
AND small business would be encouraged to form…not beaten down by an oppressive Government.
# 26 Angel H. Wong said, “And Conservatives specialize in dumbing down the populace to ensure the idiots vote for another Bush.”
Wong again. Libs run public EDU. See TUs. Try again.
#26, actually it’s the Democratic Party that has argued in court that their voters are stupid. See the 2000 election.
Someone should find out who this shithead is and beat the crap out of her…. my immediate emotional reaction. But my sane, reasoned, law abiding reaction is I should find the guy and make him shine my shoes for an hour or so and tell him not brag about how great business is.