Can you explain the city run newsstand program? I need help from the open minded more-government-Lefties.
The San Francisco city newspaper stands were installed by the Board of Supervisors to clean up the clutter of dozens of esthetically varied private newpaper dispensing racks.
Here is my problem with this City run program: I walk to coffee in the morning, going more than a mile on main streets and I pass 40 of these City run newsstands. I have to walk an additional twenty feet past my coffee shop to get the S.F. Examiner.
If that doesn't sound strange to you then here are a few relevant facts: 35 of the 40 racks I pass are empty. The S.F. Examiner should be in several of them. The Examiner has a distribution level 7 times greater than the largest other newspaper in the remaining 5 racks. Seven times greater than the other papers in the 5 used slots of the 40 racks.
Explanations: (1) standard government incompetence and (2) deliberate censorship because the S.F. Examiner is owned by a conservative man who lives in Denver.
(Photo of the corner of Castro and Market with 24 racks most empty, no S.F. Examiner.)