Streamlining In Seattle

A member of the Seattle City Council is pushing regulatory reform to facilitate a restaurant opening. Complaints from the local small-business community about the necessity of going to multiple departments at the city, county and state levels to open a restaurant only to encounter overlapping or conflicting regulations struck a cord with council members.

As a result, Seattle’s Office of Economic Development has entered into a memorandum of understanding with various agencies to create a “Restaurant Core Team” to work through implementation plans for their respective agencies. The team will identify and help resolve conflicting, confusing and inefficient regulatory requirements for restaurants as part of a formal implementation plan and develop an online guide to assist people through the regulatory process.