Regulation Roundup
- Audi has invented headlights that can “illuminate around corners and throw brighter-than-average beams. They’re also smarter, adjusting automatically to traffic, pedestrians, and road conditions.” But they can’t sell them in the U.S. because regulations require headlights to have distinct high and low settings. Audi is hoping to convince the government to modernize the rules to allow for their continuously adjusting lights.
- Economist David Henderson finds out that under Proposition 65, it is illegal to ship red licorice to California unless the packaging has a cancer warning label printed on it.
- Washington, D.C., is mulling food truck regulations that would essentially ban them from selling their delicious wares in the city’s downtown. At least one food truck, Pinup Panini, has already ceased operations because of the proposed rules.
- Meanwhile, across the Potomac, Arlington, Virginia, will allow food trucks to park in the same spot for two hours instead of the current one hour.
- Montreal has ended its 65-year ban on street food.
- New York City entrepreneurs trying to start a new pizza parlor have turned to Kickstarter to raise $50,000. Most of the money will go towards regulatory compliance costs.
- Bus drivers in Marseilles, France, are planning a one-day strike because their new uniform pants are too tight.
- Colorado’s Public Utilities Commission has had a long and cozy relationship with existing cab companies, and has denied permits to startups who would compete with them. With the Institute for Justice’s help, Mile High Cab, one of the denied entrants, sued. They won, and now people in Denver will have more transportation options. IJ recently celebrated a similar victory in Milwaukee.
- North Carolina is mulling requiring criminal background checks for dog owners.
- In Florida, it is apparently against the law to catch and keep Spanish mackerel fish unless you measure them.