There was an interesting article in the WSJ this week that caught my eye. "Good News for NYC Newstands? Price caps could Rise." The article, which I am attaching below, explains how the City Council is taking up a bill that would raise the cap on what a newsstand could charge for items from five dollars to ten dollars.
Looking at the article at first glance it seems like what is the big deal with such a small amount of money. But, after a second read, am I the only New Yorker that doesn't understand why the city should regulate a newsstand? Here we are in the greatest capitalistic city in the world and we are telling people that open up newsstands they are only allowed to sell items that can be priced under $10.00
Anyone can see why sidewalk newsstands are down from "nearly 1,600 sidewalk kiosks in the 1950s, compared with about 300 now," according to the NYC Newsstand Operators Association. In a city where most cups of coffee cost more than $5.00, how could you expect a newsstand to make a profit where they are capped at $5.00 an item.
While I applaud the city council for understanding the rise in prices of items and raising the cap to $10.00 why not just get rid of the cap all together. These small businesses — no bigger than 72 square feet, under city regulations, should be able to sell whatever the general public needs when walking down the streets at a market price. The market would cap most of the products anyway because no rational person is buying expensive products from a newsstand. But why mandate a price that you will probably have to change in another 5 years?
http://online.wsj.com/article/APc9ec23cfe19f4373a430ab266aac5127.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet
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