Can the Government Make Entrepreneurs Do Useless Things For No Reason?

http://www.ij.org/Verlin

Verlin Stoll is a 27-year-old entrepreneurial dynamo who owns Crescent Tide funeral home in Saint Paul, Minn. Verlin has built a successful business because he offers low-cost funerals while providing high-quality service. His business is also one of the only funeral homes that benefits low-income families who cannot afford the high prices of the big funeral-home companies.

Verlin wants to expand his business, hire new employees and continue to offer the lowest prices in the Twin Cities, but Minnesota refuses to let Verlin build a second funeral home unless he builds a $30,000 embalming room that he will never use.

Minnesota's law is irrational. Embalming is never required just because someone passes away and the state does not even require funeral homes to do their own embalming. In fact, it is perfectly legal to outsource embalming to a third-party embalmer. Minnesota's largest funeral chain has 17 locations with 17 embalming rooms, but actually uses only one of those rooms.

Why is Minnesota forcing Verlin to waste $30,000 on a useless embalming room as a condition of expanding his thriving business?

So that the big, full-amenity funeral-home businesses can benefit from a law that drives up prices for consumers and operating expenses for competitors such as Verlin. Verlin's basic services fee is only $250, which is about 90 percent lower than the $2,500 that the average Twin Cities' funeral home charges. Verlin's business model is built on minimizing fixed costs, which is why he does not have a hearse or chapel, and this law—to the advantage of his competitors—stands in the way of him expanding his low-cost, high-quality approach.

The government should not force Minnesotans to do useless things. That is why on January 19, 2012, Verlin and the Institute for Justice challenged the law in state court.

The Minnesota Constitution protects every Minnesotan's economic liberty, which means that it protects entrepreneurs from being burdened by legal requirements that are either useless or designed to suppress honest competition.

A victory here will not only free Verlin from an unconstitutional restraint on his economic liberty, but protect entrepreneurs across the state from pointless laws and bureaucracy.

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[newyorkairsoft]

It's Orwellian.

Go get them, IJ!

[2plus2make4]

I saw the title and thought that would be a a pretty good definition for government

government: noun, ˈgə-vər(n)-mənt' the organization, machinery, or agency through which a political unit exercises authority and makes entrepreneurs do useless things for no reason

[quantumG]

@smujismuj well, we at least need the corpses removed from the streets.

[blogegog]

I think the government should completely put him out of business by passing a law making it illegal for people to die. That'd learn him!

[smujismuj]

And I don't really care what happens to people who make a 'living' in the funeral industry which is a predatory, and unnecessary business.

[smujismuj]

There are good/just regulations and bad/unjust regulations.

There SHOULD be regulations [also known as 'laws'] to keep powerful interests from abusing that power.

There SHOULD NOT be laws concerning PRIVATE behavior.

It's pretty simple really.

The laws should be democratically determined with strict guidelines to make sure the above criteria is followed.

[Rooster55199]

just curious, are they making him own an oven for cremation too? Also, does the embalming room need to be attacked to the building? can he own "one" embalming room, and say it is used for all his funeral homes?

[areuter727]

Take back the power!

[jojo1953]

Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid x 5000

[PostiveMindBodySoul]

The people need to be empowered again not the greedy corporations, and government partnering with them so they have a tighter grip on the people. I think a lot of crap goes on behind closed door that the "MAN" would be ashamed of and how heartless they can be to preserve resources and put people on a diet of just getting by. What I don't get is why there is even a CEO, I have thought that they are a puppet for a multi-million/billion dollar company to keeping people in their place, in all levels

[jasonaorr]

@torch9t9 Sadly, the law does have minimum specifications (I looked it up). The room has to be big enough to accommodate an embalming table, as well as some kind of wash sink, and it also has to have certain plumbing connections.