BrianGarst.com

Washington D.C. apparently has a problem. It seems their street vendors offer a shockingly low number of choices, according to this WaPo article. Simply knowing this fact, it was immediately clear to me that the cause must be government. And sure enough, it is.

In New York City, street vendors sell goat-meat tacos, sour-plum slushes, mini egg rolls, chocolate egg creams and crepes — and that just covers the food. In the District, the choice often comes down to hot dogs and handbags.

Not everyone is happy with the paltry pickings. D.C. officials are unveiling an overhaul of this monotonous landscape over the next year and a half. They are blunt about what they feel is a big yawn, a pox on Washington’s image.

If it’s up to “officials” to do anything in order to provide the goods the public wants from the private sector, that means – without fail – that those same “officials” are the ones that created the problem in the first place.

. . .In 1998, the District was a lively bazaar with 3,000 vendors working the streets. Too lively: Spots were filled each day, first-come first-served, and fistfights broke out among vendors vying for prime locations. Some landed in jail.

. . .The scene got so out of hand that the D.C. Council slapped a moratorium on new vending licenses. The number of vendors plunged to 650 in eight years, largely through attrition, before the moratorium ended last month.

Vendors nowadays are fairly evenly split between sellers of merchandise and food. The lack of variety in offerings is due in part to the moratorium, Robinson said. With no new licenses issued, “they haven’t had any competition.”