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.
-%20resized%20250dpi.jpg)
SF Director of Public Works, Ed Reiskin
# 38 Patrick,
Puh-lease, everyone knows that they only need one person capable of reading the Bible and that’s enough for them.
41,
Patrick is Paddy-O.
#28 reality check….so you’d rather let big corporate businesses poison your food, than some “poor” person, eh? I don’t know how many food vendors it would take to sicken and kill as many people, or kill vast numbers of your pets…as big crappy corporate (permitted!) food concerns.
Personally, I’d rather take my chances with a street vendor.
update to the story:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/05/MNVJ1817N1.DTL&tsp=1
and, fyi, guys….obviously YOU have never had a small business. The permits are INSANE for anyone, the protection for the public minimal. It’s a tax, pure and simple. The requirements to operate a small business is an immense burden. Governments — federal, state and city — make you duplicate your efforts, and spend many hours filling out paperwork and paying fees, dealing with all sorts of red-tape, and new rules. It’s pure insanity, and why most small businesses don’t make it, are forced out of business, or, why people don’t even attempt the exercise. However, small businesses are the backbone of our economy….forget that crap about “trickle down” economy…doesn’t work (if you notice, all that loot given to the banks….has never trickled anywhere), what does work is the solid foundation of small businesses allowed to grow. It’s where innovation comes from, it’s where customers are served, and it’s where every dollar spent in the community STAYS in the community.
He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.
Someone should come forward and offer this guy “seed capital” and pay this extortion fee. In the meantime he can work to better his life and live off the streets while others work to change this horrible law.
Sure, I know…pie in the sky. In the meantime, I’ll be tilting at windmills…Stories like this kill me because this guy is in a bad place, trying to make a better life in his own way and cold bureaucratic bastards like this tool only make everyday life that much harder to live.
WTF is wrong with this picture…crap like this shouldn’t be happening here!
Is this the Broken Windows Theory all over again?
I am from NY, and am well used to homeless and panhandlers.
On a 6-day visit to SF 2 years ago, I saw more homeless and panhandlers than Tucson – where I never thought I would see as many ever again.
It depressed me enough that I will never return to SF, even as much as I will miss that breathtaking city and all ridiculous host of attractions it contains. I am a realist, and vote with my dollars; I will not pay money to get depressed on vacation, as I carry enough self-imposed white liberal guilt around.
My point is this – to further understand these issues clearly and in depth (as much as one book can provide, but it was a start), on recommendation I read Mitchell Granovetter’s “Sidewalk”. If you also choose to read it, you may completely disagree, but you won’t be misinformed.
Cheers from NY.