Jose Martiacute;nez left Mexico around 1988 and toiled for years in a patchwork of fields here, harvesting berries and lettuce and barely making ends meet. In 2002, Mr. Martiacute;nez took advantage of a city law created to help novice entrepreneurs start businesses related to the city’s largely Hispanic cultural heritage. He bought a taco truck, one of 31 licensed mobile catering vehicles in Salinas, and built it into a modestly profitable operation. But the City Council, responding to a business group and its most vocal members — the owners of Mexican restaurants — is poised to vote next month on a draft ordinance to ban taco trucks and other catering vehicles from Salinas, a farm town about 120 miles south of San Francisco. (New York Times, Friday)
If you can't beat 'em, enjoin 'em.
FEE Timely Classic
Government Licensing: The Enemy of Employment by Steven Yates