[117442] in Cypherpunks
Sept. 3 column -- business license inspector
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Fri Sep 3 09:22:39 1999
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Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 08:32:28 -0400
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Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 21:07:20 -0700
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From: Vin_Suprynowicz@lvrj.com (Vin Suprynowicz)
Subject: Sept. 3 column -- business license inspector
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FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED SEPT. 3, 1999
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Snubbed on phone, inspector sets out to teach a lesson.
In his epic novel of the American gun culture, "Unintended
Consequences," St. Louis investment banker John Ross captures the manner in
which an unintended affront to the dignity of a government bureaucrat can
escalate, these days, until it bears serious consequences for the citizen
unfortunate enough to have "dissed" a member of this new aristocratic class
(whether on purpose, or not.)
In the Ross novel, a fictional squad of tax enforcement agents from the
federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms run into some very
"unintended consequences" when they don their bulletproof vests, grab
submachine guns from their arms locker, and head out to arrest a licensed
machine-gun owner who "injured" one of their agents.
Nature of the injury? One of the female agent's long, decorated
fingernails was torn when the gun owner in the Ross book instinctively
grabbed a weapon out of her hand -- a weapon which the inexperienced agent
had arrived to inventory, but which she was handling in an unsafe manner,
having failed to check whether it was loaded.
The real-life example of this phenomenon which surfaced in Las Vegas this
week may be less serious in its repercussions than the shoot-out which
forms the centerpiece of the milestone Ross novel, but the combined degree
of arrogance, ignorance, and capricious misuse of power displayed on East
Desert Inn Road last spring sure makes Mr. Ross sound pretty much on
target.
According to a story by staff writer Caren Benjamin in the Sept. 2
Review-Journal, a representative of Clark County's Department of Business
License called the medical office of Dr. Simone Russo back on June 6,
asking for the number of the office's business license.
Dr. Russo instructed his office manager, Barbara Hower, not to give out
the number over the phone, since there was no way to check the
identification of the caller. Instead, Ms. Hower asked for a phone number
at which she could return the call.
Well, I don't mind telling you, business license inspector Almalinda
Guerrero wasn't going to put up with that! She marched herself right down
to that doctor's office, and demanded to see that license. Since by that
time Ms. Hower had taken the license down off the wall to see if she could
find a phone number there for the license department, Ms. Guerrero wrote
her up for a violation: Failure to display the license on the wall.
But was that enough for this dauntless enforcer of the county's inane
business licensing statutes? Oh no. Ms. Guerrero then proceeded to poke her
head into one of the doctor's examining rooms -- despite loud protestations
from the staff that this was an inappropriate violation of patient privacy
-- where she witnessed a male patient with his shirt off and his trousers
pulled part-way down, with lotion being applied to his body in preparation
for an ultrasound examination.
Or so the doctor's staff said. But what did they think, Almalinda
Guerrero was born yesterday? Nosiree Bob. They weren't about to put one
over on anyone as savvy as Ms. Guerrero, who promptly wrote up Dr. Russo's
office for operating a massage parlor without a proper license!
The business licensing office is "still looking into the matter," reports
license chief Ardel Jorgensen.
In hopes of fabricating more charges?
With the possible exception of enterprises that handle hazardous
substances, or offer services especially prone to corruption, local
business licensing regulations are nothing but a hidden tax on productive
enterprises in the first place. If this is the level of arrogance and
harassment honest practitioners can expect, the Clark County Commission
should review why the county needs such an ordinance -- and such an office
-- at all.
Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. His new book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the
Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at $21.95 plus $3 shipping ($6
UPS; $2 shipping each additional copy) through Mountain Media, P.O. Box
271122, Las Vegas, Nev. 89127. The 500-page trade paperback may also be
ordered via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html, or at
1-800-244-2224. Credit cards accepted; volume discounts available.
***
Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John
Hay, 1872
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and
thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series
of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
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Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
