Food Trucks in Boston

This article has in the Globe has an interesting take on the reason that it can take months to get a permit to operate a food truck in Boston: because restaurant owners want to be protected from competition. It doesn't go into the history of these permits, but presumably existing restaurant-owners lobbied the government to create the permits, and the "potential food truck owner" lobby doesn't have clearly defined members (not to mention organization and money), so there wasn't strong opposition.

I'm sure that the stated reason (and legitimately part of the reason) is to protect people from unsafe food but I don't think it is the only reason. The same goes for the licensing requirements for barbers, nail technicians (and to some extent, public school teachers, given that evidence does not show any benefit from a master's in education).