Competition

J.D. Tuccille | 8.30.2024 7:00 AM

Among the stupid ideas burdening health care in this country are "certificate of need" laws that require government permission to open new medical facilities or expand existing ones. Such laws are rackets that shield existing operations from competition, thereby limiting choices and raising prices. Leave it to government officials to take that bad idea and apply it to a hair-braiding business.

"A small business owner says she was told she could not open because her business is similar to neighboring businesses," WSB-TV reported in July of a dispute in South Fulton, Georgia. "Awa Diagne says her braid shop hasn't been able to open in the shopping plaza on Campbellton Fairburn Road for three months, because of South Fulton's like-use zoning code."

South Fulton, a city of more than 100,000 people that was incorporated in 2017, has a "like-use" restriction in its ordinances that bars new businesses from opening within one mile of similar businesses—at least its officials claim it does (more on that later). It's an inherently anticompetitive rule that puts the fate of entrepreneurs and the choices available to consumers in the hands of city officials who must decide whether sometimes idiosyncratic small businesses are in direct competition and whether they should be allowed to offer goods and services to the public.

Nevertheless, Diagne, a Senegalese immigrant who became an American citizen and has been braiding hair for over three decades won initial approval for her proposed business from city staff.

"The........

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