Guest Column: Use common sense on chain businesses

Published 12:30 am Tuesday, March 17, 2020

The Astoria City Council is looking to take steps to prohibit more large chain-type restaurants and lodging in town.

For government to actually prohibit, rather than to regulate, specific legitimate businesses would be a game-changer for residents. Government’s prohibition of specific businesses will affect all Astorians’ way of life — either good or bad, depending on your point of view.

For at least the past 60 years, Astoria has advocated the opposite to what the City Council has suggested. In the past, the city has encouraged the town’s economic growth and development by whatever means it could.

With the influx in recent years of new residents, along with the dramatic growth of Warrenton businesses, the issue for Astoria has apparently become whether times have changed about economic growth. And when is enough, enough.

A Google search shows large and small towns across America believe they’re unique, just like Astoria does. And government’s ways to foster and maintain that “uniqueness” are as varied as there are cities that tackle the issue the council has now introduced to Astoria.

Government’s direct interference with businesses and general market conditions can be a slippery slope. If the City Council prohibits large chain restaurants and lodging businesses, residents will rightly ask themselves whether the council will later prohibit big chain retail stores and big chain grocery stores. Then what else after that?

Perhaps Astoria has become too successful in the way local government has planned the area’s renaissance after some pretty tough economic times.

There’s no doubt, for example, the Port of Astoria has had remarkable success in marketing Astoria as a great stop for cruise ships. A record 75,000 passengers were scheduled to visit Astoria this year before the coronavirus scare became worldwide news. How many will now arrive in town remains to be seen. Of those that do visit, however, many will think Astoria is, in fact, a unique small town. Many will want to visit again or move to the area. Others might buy a second home. And some may want to retire here.

There seems to be little doubt a substantial portion of today’s Astoria residents would like to see no more large chain hotels or restaurants in town. These folks say a diversity of smaller and independently owned hotels and restaurants can increase economic well-being and keep the status quo’s quality of life.

They want government to prevent the proliferation of businesses that project a sense of familiar sameness that hinders a goal for Astoria to remain unique. In other words, they don’t want Astoria to look like any other small town in America. And they disapprove of more big hotels that would, in some cases, diminish or eliminate views of the Columbia River.

On the other hand, another substantial part of the community sees no good reason to adversely affect Astoria’s economic development by prohibiting specific businesses altogether. These folks argue that position shows a selfish attitude, in the sense that folks who move here and want to keep the status quo have no sense of Astoria’s recent history of struggles with economic health.

And it’s arrogant in the sense that prohibiting development by certain businesses is a presumptuous belief that people know today what’s best for future generations. From the obvious demand for new hotels, these folks contend there’s plenty of room for growth.

They also point to the huge financial windfall city government would give existing chain businesses if it eliminates competition from other chains. And contend it’s poor public policy for city government to legislate a huge benefit for specific private businesses like that.

Astoria already has the same type of chain restaurants targeted by the City Council. McDonald’s is an example. McDonald’s opened in Astoria in 1990. Yet Astoria is still “unique” 30 years later. Astoria’s Holiday Inn and the Best Western are examples of the hotel businesses the council has taken steps to prohibit more of.

Everybody knows we live in highly partisan times where compromise of contentious issues sometimes appears almost impossible. But it seems to me Astorians can, as they have in the past, resolve tough issues and still remain neighborly.

For cities around the country that have tackled growth issues, solutions have ranged all over the place. Some have outright prohibitions when the prohibited business, like a fast-food restaurant, doesn’t yet exist in the community. Other communities consider development issues individually, by analyzing proposals from developers to determine how one restriction or another would affect their city over the long haul.

Few cities appear to have prohibited specific businesses altogether to simply satisfy a current, but fleeting, wish of one segment of the population’s cry about too much economic growth.

Above all, the eventual resolution to the new, some consider radical, idea the City Council has introduced must be based on what is best for the city’s future. The Planning Commission no doubt will take a sensible and thoughtful approach. And it’s not just the loudest voices that should prevail. Nor the most politically connected. Nor to satisfy a desire of some folks for government to legislate the status quo “because that’s why I moved here.”

Common sense, along with a sense of Astoria’s history, should play a pivotal role in what the Planning Commission and City Council eventually do about Astoria’s future.