Today's news roundup features an article from the Lincoln News-Messenger titled, "Lincoln Theater Area gets OK."

It reads, in part:

In a brief special meeting Tuesday, Planning Commis-sioners gave a 14-screen cineplex planned on the edge of Lincoln's downtown a boost.

Developer Opus West Corporation had requested an amendment to the city municipal code that effectively would limit any prospective competitors from coming into Lincoln for 10 years.

The proposed amendment would designate a "Lincoln Theater Area," a commercial district that extends from Seventh Street to Ferrari Ranch Road and from Highway 65 to roughly E Street - essentially the downtown core of Lincoln.

The amendment further requires that any proposed theater would be required to locate within that Lincoln Theater Area until Jan. 1, 2018.

Like most residents of Lincoln, I suspect, I am happy to see a movie theater multi-plex coming to town.  But, unfortunately, it appears that it is coming only because the Lincoln Planning Commission, and presumably the City Council, offer the local government version of protectionism to make it happen.

I am not willing to pay that price.

It is outrageous that the Planning Commission would vote to restrict competition for over a decade. 

I don't care that, as the article states, "...such amendments are common in smaller cities. Movie theater companies, he added, normally would want a population of 140,000 before they opened a theater of this size. The amendment limiting competition, he said, would help the developer to convince a theater to come in well before there was a population big enough to support it."

Just because other cities do this does not mean that it is right.

The Lincoln City Council is populated by at least two members who claim to be conservative Republicans.  They ought to ask to have this Planning Commission action referred to the City Council and overturned.