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Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

businessinsider.com

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Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#191

Post by dunpeal »

megy wrote: post #161
dunpeal wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So over 20,000 employees would leave the Googleplex every day at noon to get lunch? This just means the next massive campus complex will not open in Mountain View. Big profitable companies and their hordes of tax paying employees will go elsewhere, and definitely will not be supporting MTV's local businesses. Welcome to the wonderful world of unintended consequences!

No, maybe they would come to the Googleplex. A huge boon in food trucks.

The Googleplex has over 20,000 employees, and food trucks are among the least efficient ways to feed them. You'd have huge convoys of food trucks entering and leaving the Googleplex for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Access control is vital in a location like a tech company's headquarters. With hundreds of random food trucks coming and going every day, such control will become impossible.

Finally, food trucks are notorious for cutting corners when it comes to food quality, especially any health concerns. I would now want myself or my employees eating from food trucks all day, every day.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#192

Post by fooker »

megy wrote: post #161
dunpeal wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So over 20,000 employees would leave the Googleplex every day at noon to get lunch? This just means the next massive campus complex will not open in Mountain View. Big profitable companies and their hordes of tax paying employees will go elsewhere, and definitely will not be supporting MTV's local businesses. Welcome to the wonderful world of unintended consequences!

No, maybe they would come to the Googleplex. A huge boon in food trucks.

Umm that already happens.

It is just that they are paid by Google instead of individual employees.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#193

Post by anonytrary »

lovich wrote: post #94
beenBoutIT wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to make a huge difference in terms of FB's appeal to potential employees. Who wants to work at FB if it means that you'll have to waste time and energy figuring out what to do for lunch every day?

I dont think that's considered a deal breaker for most people, or even a major consideration

It could easily break a tie. If I can save an hour everyday because I don't have to figure out lunch/dinner, then that's more time for me.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#194

Post by dunpeal »

dmode wrote: post #187
justinzollars wrote: post #114

I'm sorry but this is so f*cking stupid. As a Bay Area resident my priorities are the cost of housing, cleaning our dirty streets and alleviating traffic congestion. This is an example of progressivism gone awry. Solving the basics is incredibly important. Our quality of life is in decline (in the bay area) and this is the best our politicians can do? I'm enraged.

Don't get caught up and be enraged by clickbait BI headlines. Bay Area cities are not cracking down on anything. There is exactly one passed rule so far. And that is by Mountain View that only applies to a single office development. The SF rule is on proposal stages and is unlikely to pass.

> And that is by Mountain View that only applies to a single office development.

That is not true. The rule applies to all new offices in MTV. The Facebook office just happens to be the first new office that was completed with the intention to provide free food, since the law passed.

(Applying a rule like that to Facebook alone - on what basis, exactly? - would be discriminatory, unusual, and likely unenforceable.)

> The SF rule is on proposal stages and is unlikely to pass.

How do you know that?

It has some serious backers, and similar rules passed in nearby municipalities. What evidence do you have that it will not pass in SF as well?

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#195

Post by dmode »

dunpeal wrote: post #60
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It will fail on the long term, as more and more companies question the wisdom of setting up shops in the Valley and California in general, and move to locations with much lower tax and restrictions, such as Austin TX. But that will only last a decade or two before they turn Austin (or wherever) into SF 2.0 and all the business goes elsewhere.

> But that will only last a decade or two before they turn Austin (or wherever) into SF 2.0 and all the business goes elsewhere. I don't think local government in Texas is as amenable to well-meaning but ultimately intrusive and disruptive policies like in Northern California.

Texas government don't pass intrusive policies ? They literally passed a law that forces women to bury aborted fetus. I mean that is 100x more intrusive than cafeterias

https://www.newsweek.com/abortion-texas-fetus-law-2017-57686...

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#197

Post by jackconnor »

nostrademons wrote: post #158

Lotta hate for Mountain View in the comments here, which is ironic because with this ordnance Mountain View is trying to fix a problem that tech companies get a lot of hate on HN for. I've got mixed feelings about this, so I'll try and explain both sides: The problem MV's fixing is the perception that highly-paid tech workers have become a class of their own, isolated from the larger communities in which they live an…

I feel what you're saying, and that definitely is something that happens. Especially for people who move for the job, it's very easy to keep oneself separate from the community. But making it illegal to feed your employees is a very stupid, very authoritarian way of dealing with it that feels like a terrible idea. I don't want to be told where to shop, ever, for any reason, and I dislike that these local governments are trying to force people to spend money at specific places over others. It would be difficult to describe this as any part of a free economy, and if I were starting one of these startups it would be a bad indicator for what might happen in the future and I would be extremely reluctant to set up shop in the town. What if the next move is even more egregious? Can't risk it man.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#198

Post by ducttapecrown »

uberman wrote: post #34
chatmasta wrote: post #5

Can anyone comment on the legality of this? IANAL and it’s just a feeling, but it seems like this must be unconstitutional somehow?

While I think it is totally bonkers, I think it is probably within the city's authority to forbid institutional food prep and/or a kitchen within spaces zoned for commercial use but not generally accessible to the public. I don't think they have really thought this through though. For example, would this forbid a soupe kitchen that serves hot meals, how about a nursing home or a hospital?

There is only one city with the legislation in place, which is Mountain View. It only applies to Facebook's new offices near the San Antonia shopping center.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#199

Post by ducttapecrown »

seehafer wrote: post #15
panzagl wrote: post #9

This is how businesses get driven to the suburbs.

That is the usual refrain from the "die techie scum" SF denizens: "go back to the suburbs!" Unfortunately the suburbs are now hostile too: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/New-Facebook-Offices-M...

You just linked to an article discussing exactly the same situation that the post's article discusses.

Re: Bay Area cities are cracking down on free food at tech companies

#200

Post by jtmcmc »

zjaffee wrote: post #177
justinzollars wrote: post #114

I'm sorry but this is so f*cking stupid. As a Bay Area resident my priorities are the cost of housing, cleaning our dirty streets and alleviating traffic congestion. This is an example of progressivism gone awry. Solving the basics is incredibly important. Our quality of life is in decline (in the bay area) and this is the best our politicians can do? I'm enraged.

I'm not sure if they are directly related, but either way, given that the twitter tax brakes were supposed to bring new life to mid market yet hardly did anything. Is this a way to reconcile the damage that came from those tax breaks?

from https://sfcontroller.org/sites/default/files/FileCenter/Docu...

Businesses within the Area paid $7.6 million more in payroll tax in 2013 than they did in 2010. While some increase would be expected because of the economic recovery, the Area generated $7.1 million more in payroll tax than it would have, if it had grown at the same rate as the rest of the city from 2010 to 2013.

Also based on payroll tax filings, there were 61 more businesses in the Area in 2013 than there were in 2010. Again, some increase would be expected, but there were 32 more than there would have been if the number of businesses in the Area grew the same rate as the rest of the city from 2010 to 2013

Taxable sales, which reflect the health of neighborhood-serving retail businesses, grew more slowly in the Area than the rest of the city from 2010 to 2013—a 10% increase as opposed to a 25% increase in the rest of the city. Had taxable sales in the Area grown at the same rate as the rest of the city, an additional $90,000 in sales tax would have been generated.

An examination of trends in commercial rent, residential asking rents, and housing values in the Area revealed that, while increases have been rapid since the exclusion took effect, similarly rapid increases were seen in the rest of the city, and there was no appreciable difference between the Area and the rest of the city in the growth of commercial and residential rents, and housing prices.

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