Paying for Regulation

The NY Post's Steve Cuozzo has a nice piece this morning on the rising cost of dining out in the city. Now a great deal of the focus is on rising rents and the higher cost of supplies, but another item caught our eye. Towards the end of the story Cuozzo quotes Alan Stillman, the founder of Smith & Wolensky who also cites, "'financial pressure on the industry from city agencies like the Department of Health.'"

We have witnessed in the five years of the term of Mother Bloomberg and Doc Frieden an unprecedented focus on regulating and fining restaurants-from trans fat ban and menu labeling, to a ticket blits after some rats were spotted at a local Taco Bell. All of this has a cost, of course, although the mayor doesn't seem to worry about the regulatory burden his regime has on neighborhood businesses. His only concern? The financial sector where his kind of folks hang out and profit.