I went to this beautiful place when I visited last. No federal employees needed at all.
The only “federal” connection is that the Cliff House pays a fee to operate on the land. So 1) they’ve already paid that, or 2) you’re actually stopping them from paying money to the government.
Oh, and by the way, now all the servers and the bus boys at the restaurant are out of work. Thank you, Mr. President!
Via PJ Media:
Most of the news about the “Shutdown Theater” — unnecessary closures ordered by the Obama administration to purposely maximize the pain of the government shutdown — has focused on the Washington, DC area, but the epidemic of artificial Potemkin Suffering has now struck the West Coast as well.
San Francisco’s Cliff House, a privately owned and very profitable restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean, was suddenly and unexpectedly ordered closed today, “because” the building sits on federal land. This, despite the fact that the Cliff House racks up $11.5 million in annual sales and is one of the most profitable independent restaurants in the nation.
How does the government save money by shuttering a profitable business? And a private one at that?
There are no federal employees at the Cliff House restaurant; a receptionist still manning the phones there today confirmed that all employees are paid by the restaurant’s owners, not by the government. As the Cliff House’s own Web site notes today, the restaurant is a “concessionaire” operating a business on Federal land — in this case, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which encompasses much of the Pacific shoreline along San Francisco and Marin counties — which means it is a private business which pays a fee to operate on government property: