New York and The Dangerous Dog Sitters
Nobody clutches pearls and wrings hands like New Yorker bureaucrats. I read this story here and just couldn't help but feel sorry for people that live in that city. People have dogs in New York city, and while they are out at work all day a dog sitter will come and take care of them. To New York bureaucrats, this must not happen. You need a kennel license damn it! This is why occupational licensing is of the devil. Why should anyone be forced with violence, kidnap, and extortion just to voluntarily interact with another human being?
The dog sitting service isn't harming the pets, and the pet owners are not being ripped off in any way. One of the apps "Rover", brought in $4.1 million last year. According to health department, it was all criminal. This is only a problem for politicians using the power of government to rip off the citizen. It was encouraging to see a couple of the city council members see this as bad law and are currently trying to repeal the law, or make a carve out for pet sitting in general.
The best solution for this of course is the free market. If you have a pet sitting service that is just terrible, nobody will use them and they'll close down. The market is a far harsher judge, jury, and executioner to bad actors than any legislative body.
