I’m not going to endorse it as a good or desirable system, on the contrary, but rather than shutting down his business this person should probably hire an expediter.
An expediter could be a law firm but doesn’t have to be. Often they employ former city employees.
Expediters are experts at navigating the city bureaucracy and getting whatever license or permit is required. They are most commonly used by developers and bars but can be useful for all sorts of businesses.
It doesn't have to be personal favors, a lot of issues are knowing who to bug, how to effectively bug them to get what you want done, and the right answers to any regulatory questions. A lot of time at work half the fight of getting something done for me is finding the right person to talk to to get the request information we need to file.
As rtkwe says, it can mean a range of things. Some are relatively innocuous like knowing what form to fill out, others are borderline like having worked with the relevant people before and having built up some good will, and there have been cases of outright corruption.
similar to assassins, i guess they do the dirty work of greasing on your behalf, so your hands stay clean, your job gets done, and all's well in the kingdom.
Folks from 3rd world nations understand this very well.
A necessary evil and often a lot cheaper than the whole lawyer route. Can be something as benign as someone who will go stand in line and do time consuming bureaucratic queuing on your behalf all the way to folks who have relationships within the bureaucracy and can get things flowing.
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