Well, as I said, it always starts with things like fire codes and then goes from there to spending tens of thousands on traffic studies. $15,000 for fire alarms might be ok. $150,000 for wheelchair accessible bathrooms is, in my view, overkill. They charge $100/month; that would mean at least 125 memberships just to pay for the bathrooms.
But, just taking your specific example for a second, that actually seems to argue in favor of my point that these regulations are safety theater...because the Cromanon people received a permit!
www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/world/americas/21briefs-7MEMBERSOFBA_BRF.html?_r=1
...evidence showed that the club was given a permit
although it lacked basic measures like fire extinguishers.
A permit was issued, but the place wasn't safe. So that argues in favor of the concept that it was safety theater. Just like how the TSA doesn't actually protect against terrorism, it just tries to appear like it does.
As for the next move, this is a Rorschach test. One response is to increase the stringency of the regulation, indirectly fining all other businesses for the Cromanon incident. An alternative response is to penalize the regulators involved, in the same way that Arthur Andersen paid a penalty for giving a thumbs up on Enron.
The key difference is whether there is one government regulator or many distributed and competing reviewers. If there is only one regulator, the inevitable result of any terrible incident will be to monotonically ratchet up regulations on everyone, TSA style, with the only concern being PR and no heed for costs. Alternatively, if there is competition among reviewers, then that organically leads to an ongoing assessment of whether a particular rule is worth the costs or not.
The point of the codes isn't to fit it into the Hacker Dojo's budget. The point of the codes is to make buildings safe, accessible, etc. I'm sure every business would like to not pay for wheelchair accessible bathrooms if they could get away with it - calling it a 'MVP' or just not being able to afford it. That is no excuse to not making your place accessible and safe.
How are we even debating this? Do we really think people in wheelchairs shouldn't be able to use the bathroom? Pretty much every fire/accessibility regulation seems like something I'd want from every building I step foot in.
They were quoted a charge of $150,000 to add three wheelchair-accessible bathrooms. Do you think that is really the best use of money at inception? Can't they say "we'll add that when we get to 1000 members, we can't afford it right now, please go to the Starbucks next door, here's a map"?
It's pretty damn hard to raise $150k. That is easily more than a year's income, after tax, for a highly paid engineer in the Bay Area. Even with national publicity from the New York Times they've raised about $50k. And it's sort of difficult to raise $150k for the bathrooms.
This is a gold-plated feature for a garage group without money, it's not a reasonable early feature. And that's before the traffic studies, concrete enclosed dumpsters, and other things the city wants. The ironic thing is that several people in this thread support the regulations while also saying things like:
For the record? I'm absolutely for the Hacker Dojo and
wish more existed around here (and / or that I had the
time / ability to found one).
But the reason that more don't exist around here is the price tag: more than $250k for a simple coworking space that attracts negative attention from city bureaucrats. For comparison, that is 22X the average YCombinator investment.
We must thank god YC itself hasn't attracted their attention. I guess pg could pay them off now, but might have been touchy in the early days.
Asian slums are one product I'd rather not import. Your attitude will turn back the clock on civilization. You want to revert to slums, workhouses, child labour, the crushing poverty of indentured servitude. Your approach was tried before and found lacking.
Human life and dignity is more important than saving silicon valley a few dollars.
Cromañon was issued permits because the regulations weren't enforced, because the city government was corrupt. How is that an argument for not having or not enforcing the regulations?
But, just taking your specific example for a second, that actually seems to argue in favor of my point that these regulations are safety theater...because the Cromanon people received a permit!
A permit was issued, but the place wasn't safe. So that argues in favor of the concept that it was safety theater. Just like how the TSA doesn't actually protect against terrorism, it just tries to appear like it does.As for the next move, this is a Rorschach test. One response is to increase the stringency of the regulation, indirectly fining all other businesses for the Cromanon incident. An alternative response is to penalize the regulators involved, in the same way that Arthur Andersen paid a penalty for giving a thumbs up on Enron.
The key difference is whether there is one government regulator or many distributed and competing reviewers. If there is only one regulator, the inevitable result of any terrible incident will be to monotonically ratchet up regulations on everyone, TSA style, with the only concern being PR and no heed for costs. Alternatively, if there is competition among reviewers, then that organically leads to an ongoing assessment of whether a particular rule is worth the costs or not.