Local: The cause of Peoria anti-business climate is …

… Peorians.

We want it both ways.

We scream and yell about how Peoria makes it hard to do business.

But  we scream and yell even louder whenever anyone wants to do business in our neighborhood. Heaven forbid, there might be a car parked where I want to park! There might be some urban youth-type person walking down by block after dark. And the City Council better not do anything that might generate car traffic on my street!

I’d love to unload a ton of bile and venom onto whatever city employees who screwed the pooch and told the owners of the teen club Adrenaline that there was nothing stopping them from locating the business at 7620 N. University St., even through it was well within the 500 feet of residences, a violation of the city’s almost unique teen dance club ordinance.

But methinks the owners maybe should done a little more homework than just rely on some drone at Peoria City Hall, especially since it’s a given that so few of them are really aware of all the Peoria’s many, many, many rules and regulations. It’s shame it has to be this way, but that’s a reality of doing business in Peoria.

Both sides in this dispute are going to try to get together and come up with a new ordinance rather than the somewhat clunky and unspecific ordinance change proposed last week.

But folks, as I’ve said before and will no doubt say again, it doesn’t really help to tinker with the rules. There’s no substitute for electing people who have the testicular fortitude to cast votes that make sense from a free-market point of view, rather than just pander to the not-in-my-backyard voter.

And here’s another warning for people who live in Peoria’s neighborhoods: You can’t expend older neighborhoods to survive by making it hard for people do conduct commerce in the city. The more businesses leave, the more of the tax burden falls on homeowners and the faster. And someone explain to me how empty storefronts are a sign of a healthy neighborhood.