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SF Supervisors Move to Ban Workplace Cafeterias

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Re: SF Supervisors Move to Ban Workplace Cafeterias

#61

Post by srinivasan »

bsimpson wrote: post #59
kernoble wrote: post #44

Isn't this the same as the Broken Window Fallacy? They want to force people to use economically inefficient services, small restaurants versus large cafeteria, to create more economic "activity". Which would be analogous to celebrating the waste of breaking a perfectly good window, because fixing/replacing the window generates economic activity. Is that fair? This is under the (I think reasonable) assumption that a c…

I trust that I have access to higher quality, healthier food at work than I would if I had to buy lunch at a restaurant. Employers have a stronger incentive to prioritize long-term health in conjunction with short term satisfaction. Restaurants have an incentive to overuse unhealthy but addictive/inexpensive ingredients like salt/sugar/fat to maximize short term pleasure.

This.

Re: SF Supervisors Move to Ban Workplace Cafeterias

#62

Post by ibeckermayer »

toomanyrichies wrote: post #55
mbgaxyz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace "people" with "politicians" and I'll give you an upvote.

At the risk of nit-picking the humor out of your comment, I'd say the city's politicians already do run that gauntlet. City Hall is adjacent to the open-air drug market known as the Tenderloin, and many members of the city's transient population frequent the park in front of City Hall. Also, the closest BART stop (Civic Center station) is arguably the stop in SF with the most persistent hygiene issues.

Yeah and you can bet your ass those politicians are hopping in an Uber and sailing right by it behind tinted windows...

Re: SF Supervisors Move to Ban Workplace Cafeterias

#63

Post by [deleted] »

mbgaxyz wrote: post #23

Maybe office workers prefer not to have to run the gauntlet of feces and hypodermic needles, just to buy a sandwich. "San Francisco Man Steps on Hydodermic Needle, Demands Action" https://www.nbcbayarea.com/on-air/as-seen-on/SF-Businesses-W... "Junkies Take Over Corridors Of San Francisco Civic Center BART Station" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gT5NULvRSk "SF Crime, Squalor Scares Away $40 Million Medical Conventi…

[deleted]

Re: SF Supervisors Move to Ban Workplace Cafeterias

#64

Post by ibeckermayer »

mkempe wrote: post #33
dragonwriter wrote: post #14

To the extent that discouraging this practice is useful, a tax seems more sensible than a zoning ban; a zoning ban, by effectively grandfathering incumbents, is basically a barrier to new entrants competing (if on-site cafeterias didn't have a business function, firms wouldn't spend money on them) with incumbents (whether for talent, or on productivity if food in-house contributes to that.) A tax can internalize what…

Instead of quibbling about the choice of means in social engineering, maybe the first question to consider is whether such interference is a legitimate power of government.

It is a legitimate power if the people who form the government consented to give the government the power to write zoning laws. The real question is — when did we consent to be governed by these dopes?

Re: SF Supervisors Move to Ban Workplace Cafeterias

#65

Post by themagician »

WallWextra wrote: post #25

The bit about local restaurants losing business seems like a pretty thin fig leaf over a law that's really about taking tech employees down a peg. I don't live in the bay area, so maybe someone can fill me in. How is it supposedly so gentrified that nobody but software engineers can survive, yet local politicians feel comfortable doing things like this? Who actually lives in the city?

The area people are talking about is mainly Civic Center / Tenderloin. It’s the only are left in the city with real public housing, and it’s in the middle of the city. As a result of the zoning, it’s hard to gentrify. So what the city had been doing is giving huge tax cuts to companies to move into the area. But they move in and create a ivory tower that no one ever leaves. You see extreme poverty next to extreme wealth. The streets are filled with drifters, day hookers and an open air drug market and the people in the towers get chauffeured to and from work.

Re: SF Supervisors Move to Ban Workplace Cafeterias

#66

Post by platinumrad »

themagician wrote: post #58
adventured wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning home ownership so that landlords benefit is not interesting, it's extremely regressive and morally wrong.

There are other cities around the world that do 99-year leases or where the state owns the land and it seems to work okay.

Huge difference between landlords and the state.

Re: SF Supervisors Move to Ban Workplace Cafeterias

#67

Post by dragonwriter »

mkempe wrote: post #33
dragonwriter wrote: post #14

To the extent that discouraging this practice is useful, a tax seems more sensible than a zoning ban; a zoning ban, by effectively grandfathering incumbents, is basically a barrier to new entrants competing (if on-site cafeterias didn't have a business function, firms wouldn't spend money on them) with incumbents (whether for talent, or on productivity if food in-house contributes to that.) A tax can internalize what…

Instead of quibbling about the choice of means in social engineering, maybe the first question to consider is whether such interference is a legitimate power of government.

The question “is this a good way of serving the overt goal” is easier to answer without running into clashes of first principles than “is it a proper role of government to internalize externalities”.

It may be the case that “do in office kitchens produce a net negative externality” may be as easy to answer as the first question, but it at least seems to me that the answer is less obvious.

Re: SF Supervisors Move to Ban Workplace Cafeterias

#68

Post by masterleep »

djohnston wrote: post #16

also an effort to fuck catering companies or contingent workers who work in these large cafeterias. what an idiotic and arbitrary restriction of the fundamental human right to eat where/what we want

Who cares about them when we can vigorously virtue-signal by shitting on tech workers?

Re: SF Supervisors Move to Ban Workplace Cafeterias

#69

Post by mc32 »

WTF, I hope Breed nixes this nonsense. What next, ban me from bringing in my home cooked meal because it deprives some hole in the wall which uses subpar ingredients from making a living?

Ban buses, it deprives Uber and taxi drivers a job.

This is utter socialist nonsense.

Re: SF Supervisors Move to Ban Workplace Cafeterias

#70

Post by dmitrygr »

forgotmysn wrote: post #11

from what I understand, there is a similar measure underway in Mountain View as well

Slightly different. MV measure bans cafeterias from being free, not from existing, They are just limited to subsidizing food cost to 50%. SF just outright bans cafeterias.
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