Baylen Linnekin on Ending the Food Protectionism Racket
Recently a San Francisco neighborhood merchants' group, the Valencia Corridor Merchants Association, announced it would seek a temporary ban on new restaurants in the up-and-coming neighborhood. "As a merchants association, it's our job to protect the restaurants already on the corridor," said Deena Davenport, a neighborhood salon owner who also served as past president of the neighborhood association, in remarks to the San Francisco Examiner. "Our goal has always been to keep the diversity on the street."
There's a term for the exclusionary goal of protecting existing restaurants against new competitors, writes Baylen Linnekin, and that term is not diversity.
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?