Obamacare Tragedy Watch: Nashville Katz

Photo by army_arch. Liberty Bringing a Dr. Pepper Float to Table 36.

According to the Heritage Foundation's Daily Aufruf Signal, that wicked Obama is bringing about the shuttering of the Noshville Authentic New York Delicatessen in the Broadway district of, uh, Nashville:

Dec. 27, the midtown Nashville location of the restaurant, one of two [Tom] Loventhal owns, will be closing its doors in part because of Obamacare, he said.

“Having more than 50 full-time employees means you have to comply with the Affordable Care Act, and it was an unknown risk of how much it was going to cost,” he told The Daily Signal. “But it was going to be significant, and take a lot of time and labor to take care of the transition and the reporting and the forms.”

Three restaurants, actually; the other two are in Green Hills and out at the airport, but the bulk of the 80-90 employees are at the midtown location, so by getting rid of them he can get rid of the threat of health insurance for dishwashers, waitstaff, and cooks (some of the managers are insured already).

Contrast the approach of Bob Bernstein of Nashville's Bongo Java chain, as reported not in the Signal but in The Tennesseean:

Bernstein expects he'll spend more money by offering insurance than paying the penalty, but he decided the coverage would be better for morale and the "company as a whole." Bongo Java, which owns several popular restaurants and coffee spots including Fenwick's 300 and Fido, has about 160 employees, but most are part-time. The company is on the edge of the full-time employee requirement.

"I feel bad writing the federal government a $30,000-40,000 check," Bernstein said. "It's going to cost me probably double, but at least it's going toward something. I don't think it's going to shut my business."

The major difference is, Loventhal was going to do it anyway.

He's sold the Noshville property to a developer and was on track to shut it down by March. He's just doing it a couple of months earlier now.

But the development is depriving Nashvilleans, perhaps, of that one last New Year's Eve pastrami sandwich, or is it Presidents' Day bagel, or Martin Luther King, Jr., Day knish—or forcing them out to the suburbs to get it! They won't be able to say a proper farewell! This is the kind of suffering Obama gladly inflicts on people as he carries out his ruthless socialist designs.

Please listen to what Tennessee Rep Diane Black has to say regarding the closing of Noshville and Obamacare. https://t.co/Xc1uu7q6Ht

— Noshville Pickle (@NoshvillePickle) December 9, 2015

I am shocked, shocked to find politics intruding into this heartrending tale!