01/06/2025
You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.
-Thomas Sowell
Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.
-Milton Friedman
Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.
-Albert Einstein
Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?
-Frank Herbert
Not the only reason but a big factor that drained a lot of our money.
So here is the long and the short of one of the biggest issues to why Sideshow Gelato closed.
When we were going through the Zoning under the Lightfoot administration we were held up for almost two months. The main reason was the head of the department refused to approve the plans because they didn’t understand the shop’s concept. The woman who was expediting this knew the guy and was seriously frustrated by his inability to wrap his brain around this. The first problem was the stage. Why were there stages if it is a gelato shop?
At the time the expediter insisted on us getting a license for a “Restaurant with Entertainment.” The ordinances on the books seemed reasonable to us and, in the brochures put out by the Lightfoot administration on “What Kind of Licence Do I Need?” it seemed doable. Rather than fighting Zoning to rezone for a public place of amusement we would adhere to the license restrictions. These were that 1) We seated under 99 people. Check. 2) We were not primarily an entertainment venue. Check. 3) We only asked for suggested donations and did not require a purchase to see the entertainment. Check and this is what we did. 4) We post the ordinance in the window. Check. Done.
So we submitted this to Zoning. They came back objecting to the word “Museum” in the full name of the business. Were we a museum? Why is there a museum space if we were not?
How did all this apply to gelato.
I had to write a letter that stated what a “sideshow” was historically and how we had these performers but were not an actual sideshow. I then had to explain what a dime museum was and then say that we, in fact, were not a real dime museum. We were a gelato shop and this was a “theme” like other theme restaurants. I finished with the line “We are no more a real dime museum or traveling sideshow then the Rainforest Café is a real rainforest. I hope this clears things up.”
We changed the word “museum area” on the plans to “dining area” and drew a few circles denoting tables and eventually cleared and opened the shop.
Some time at the beginning of the year two agents from the Bureaus of Business Affairs License Enforcement came by. They were looking for the business that use to occupy the space we were now in as the owner of that did not alert them that he was no longer in business and they were investigating a lapsed license. When they came in they saw we were set up for a show and started asking questions of which we answered.
We were now in the current mayor’s administration and there was a lot about the city being in financial trouble.
Despite the fact that we were in compliance with everything we needed to be the officers called their boss who basically told me that despite this I needed a PPA but couldn’t “tell” me to get one yet gave me a 10 day notice to correct. (Nothing has ever gotten done in Chicago in 10 days.) He then basically said that even if I honed the language on our ticketing site and website they would keep sending agents until we screwed up and then get hit with at $10K fine.
I went to find the brochure I saw when I opened about the type of license I needed that listed the requirements for having or not having a PPA. It was changed. There was now no mention of audience size, donation or posting the ordinance but it now looked as it insisted ALL businesses with entertainment have a PPA. I looked online at the ordinances and, sure enough, they were all still in place and active. The mayor or this office seemed now to have omitted this information to make it appear there were no options. Probably because donations were not taxable where a PPA and entertainment ticket prices had a city entertainment tax.
So with “10 days to correct” I reached out to the alderman’s office. He is a young alderman and most of his staff are kids afraid of the city’s offices. Whenever I reached out to them they sheepishly contacted the offices and reported back to me the same information the departments had given me only pi***ng the department’s off at me for getting the Alderman envolved. A few times this just made things worse for me and I suspect them reaching out on our behalf just did that again. So they talked to some guy at the Bureau who called me and started asking questions. I answered them. “Well it looks like your are charging.”
“If you look you will see suggested donation options but there is also an option to pay nothing.”
“Why are you doing burlesque shows?”
“Because that’s part of sideshow history and we like an adult crowd.”
“Well you are going to have a hard time getting a PPA because you are going to need a licence for adult entertainment.”
“No because we operate within the statutes that keep things clean. All the performers are meeting specifications and these shows are after 10pm. And voluntary donations still apply.”
“Yeah, but you serve ice cream! You are an ice cream shop! Nobody should be taking off their clothes.”
“Well you clearly don’t get our concept.”
“Look man, the alderman must like you cuz he asked me to call and help. I’m just a bureaucrat. I’m telling you if I don’t get it you are going to have problems.”
So we went and got a lawyer to get a PPA. I couldn’t do it myself because when I submitted for the license it was going to automatically get rejected. I now had to fork over $6k for the lawyer and licensing fees. When this eventually went up in front of the Zoning Board of Appeals this would have to be argued by an expert showing the noise levels and parking. Then every person that lived within 150 feet of the shop would need to be informed of this zoning change and given the opportunity to object.
When all was said and done it would have cost me $12K that I didn’t have.
We paid the first $6K to get the ball rolling and we accentuated the donation based admission on everything we did.
This cause greater confusion as people like to be told what to pay straight up. We had very very few people who paid nothing but we did suffer ticket sales as people felt they could always just pay at the door. Statistically people are 80% more likely to abandon plans to see an event or show if they do not commit to purchasing a ticket. So we became scared and overly cautious with our language and we suffered.
Things went down hill from there with other factors really mucking up our works. (Full on street construction on the last huge month of the year.)
We ran unmolested, adhering to ordinance, until we decided to close.
So we came to the last day. We decided to do one last big goodbye party. No tickets at the door. It was billed as a fundraiser with a suggested donation of $40 and $80 so we could have something to pay off some of the shop debts. We, admittedly, were lax on the language but it was still there. After all, the party was listed as our CLOSING THE DOORS party and it was charging for food and all the gelato you wanted to eat.
So we are having the party. It was in full swing. 9:35pm, on a Saturday. On the Saturday between Christmas and New Years. The Bureau sent THREE officers to fine me.
We went in the back and I explained that this was a closed party. It was a fund raiser because after it was over we were closed for good. No more business. Partially because of them and the City and the money I had to waste on an unfinished Zoning change and the loss of tickets caused by the confusion of me needing to put unnecessarily confusing verbiage on all of our sites and posts. I asked them why they needed, on my closing day, to hassle a small business that tried and suffered in a city that sucks for business.
“I did everything to the ordinance.”
“Well the ordinances are hard for the average person to understand.”
“No. No they aren’t. These particular ones are very clear and take up a couple of paragraphs that spell out what to do. I did them. What this is, is bureaucratic interpretation because you guys know if I continue to get donations you get no extra tax money from me. Right? Besides, if the laws of government are too difficult for the average person to understand then the problem is with the law not the person.”
No answer.
Since I was closing anyway they decided to have mercy and not to fine me but give me a “Cease and Desist” from preforming any other shows with the threat of arrest and a fine to not only me but my employees and business closure.
They wished me luck with future endeavors and even had the nerve to say “I hope with your next venture you consider staying in Chicago” and slunk out.
So why didn’t I just get a PPA in the first place? My “expert” told me I didn’t have to if I played by the rules I didn’t need one. So did Lightfoot’s brochure and I believed both.
So it’s a moot point now. You might think I’m just blaming the city for my problems or we failed because you didn’t like the product and thought it was crap or bad decisions were made or we were too weird. We, admittedly, were not for everyone and I’m sure some of that is true. I will defend my product as I learned from a gelato master and I know my ability and palate so taste is a matter of perspective but I did get weird and was not appealing to the masses. None the less, I can tell you the way the City interacts with and disregards truly small mom and pop businesses was a huge factor in the closing of Sideshow Gelato.
Still this is just indicative to why you see so many empty buildings, so many closed and closing businesses and so much mediocrity in Chicago. We are headed towards a city of big corporate chains where only safe and understood concepts survive.
Nixon, who I hate that I am quoting but I can't disagree, said "Once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity."
I am far from a genius but the fact stands as far as any innovation. The environment we live in will bring taste to the median. Anything that exists outside of that will not find an audience big enough to maintain it and is doomed to fail. As long as bureaucracy rewards the mediocre and topples the unusual and artistic the environment will always live in the gray and we will persist in a world where Olive Garden, Baskin Robbins and Applebees remains the rule rather than the exception.
One last quote.
Bureaucracy is a constant threat to imagination and innovation especially coming from a person of average means. Bureaucrats are unreasonably simple but feel the need to understand ideas beyond their comprehension in order to perform in the service of which they were elected or appointed to help. If one has money and ideas the money is all the bureaucrat needs to understand. If one has no money and ideas unrecognizable to the bureaucrat then god help you. – Jay Bliznick
