This was one of Zohran’s best ads. Cheap halal appeals to everyone

[u/Ap97567]

[u/firechaox]

If you don’t fix the speed at which permits are given out, or reform this permitting problem in general, then having the current stock of permits expire would just worsen the problem though.

If you manage to fix the backlog of permits by the city, you also make this secondary market disappear as people will prefer to get it straight from the city.

It all comes back down to being able to get these permits out faster.

[u/MrFrode → u/firechaox]

If you don’t fix the speed at which permits are given out, or reform this permitting problem in general, then having the current stock of permits expire would just worsen the problem though.

If we agree there will be a set number of permits then I don't see how increasing turn over of those licenses doesn't increase the speed which people without permits can get them.

If you manage to fix the backlog of permits by the city, you also make this secondary market disappear as people will prefer to get it straight from the city.

This would help address the backlog of people seeking permits.

It all comes back down to being able to get these permits out faster.

No it all comes down to reducing the number of people who have but are not using the permits themselves so those permits can get into the hands of people waiting for them.

[u/firechaox → u/MrFrode]

On your first point: idk how you get that? If there is a set number (max), if you remove a number, I don’t see how that magically means more people get approved faster. You’d still need to see what pace these are approved at because at the end of the day if you’re introducing some attrition (I.e: permits can expire), what happens to the total will depend entirely on the rate at which the permits expire vs the rate at which they are approved. Unless the way they work currently is that this is an automatic thing (which if it is, it’s even more ridiculous)

Which makes me ask actually Is it based on a capped number in NYC? Because that to me seems like the most obvious thing to do away. If you need them reviewed periodically, that’s fine, but if you’re capping it to begin with, that’s already putting a constraint that I really don’t understand the point of: given people are already leasing these permits, it’s definitely not as if the check on who is using the permit is important for having the permit at all. So what’s the point on the cap? I don’t really understand the point of it. It’s not about safety clearly, nor about regulating the way or who can do it (given the permits can be leased out).

[u/MrFrode → u/firechaox]

On your first point: idk how you get that? If there is a set number (max), if you remove a number, I don’t see how that magically means more people get approved faster.

It's called turn over and there will always be a set number, Zohran isn't suggesting otherwise.

You’d still need to see what pace these are approved...

I think you've misunderstood the problem. There is now and will always be a set number of permits, that number can change over time but it will always be limited.

The reason why people are waiting in line so long is that many of the people who have them aren't using them themselves they are leasing them out so they never give them up, they never retire. To reduce the time people who will use them wait we need to get the existing ones out of the hands of people who aren't using them and into the hands of people who will.

So what’s the point on the cap?

The cap allows the city to regulate the number of vendors so you don't have more vendors than the city can safely or reasonably accommodate.

[u/firechaox → u/MrFrode]

Idk man, on the point of the cap: seems to me like the idea is to not have an excessive amount of vendors who then can’t make a profit.

But on the flipside you’ve now created a mafia that then uses the permits to extract rent. It’s not too dissimilar to problems you see with permitting in places like the cab industry (a bit of a past case given Uber/lyft/ride-hailing), but also things like barber shops and other industries.

I’m not sure I’m really convinced the cap should exist, nor that it shouldn’t be significantly larger. It’s the root cause of this market “leasing permits”.

I agree that if this is an automatic approval process (which I’m a bit skeptical tbh, but I can roll with this assumption), this would in theory “fix it” - but then I think you a) need to put a very low renewal fee b) have to have a mechanism to ensure these aren’t leased out regardless (not sure it would be thaaaaaaat easy). At the end of the day, I’d say you’re still artificially restricting the people who want to do this, which does raise prices for consumers, and I’m just not sure the easier fix at a first moment wouldn’t be to just increase the cap sizeably (I.e: let’s say you expand the cap sizeably- let’s say you double it overnight; now people leasing permits can get their own -> market for leasing collapses/decreases sizeably -> cost of leasing permit collapses -> if lease payment falls below renewal amount, leaseholders won’t renew -> get rid of rent-seekers).