The free market works

[natedogg]

This new york times piece of all places:

restuarants in Ethiopia


Ethiopian fare is eaten with one's hands, in communal fashion, making sanitation especially important to diners here. As Addis Ababa transforms itself from a tired capital city into a more modern metropolis, its restaurants are becoming more sophisticated and its customers more discriminating - at the table, and at the toilet.

In a recent edition, Fortune (a local Ethiopian paper) awarded three and a half stars (of a possible five) to Olive's Garden Restaurant & Lounge, an Italian establishment, in the "sanitation" category.

....

Before Fortune began its scrutiny, restrooms received little attention here. They were dank outposts. The joke was that waiters did not direct patrons to the facilities but just urged them to follow the smell.

...

Because of the scrutiny by Fortune, and by two Amharic-language newspapers that have begun reviews of their own, restaurants are making improvements. Angry restaurant owners have threatened Fortune with lawsuits over its tough assessments, but most have just quickly cleaned up.

"Some say we are unnecessarily cruel or harsh," Mr. Tamrat said of the reviews. "We can't satisfy everyone. But now, when someone thinks of opening a restaurant, it's in the back of their mind that some people they don't know might walk in and write them up."


Notice that these restaurants have been improving their facilities due to market pressures and publicity alone. No regulations were required.

But I won't be surprised to see local politicans passing new sanitation regulations and claiming that the world would end without these new regulations in place....

natedogg