Tipster Tom has found us a budget fix, which would certainly work as well in RI as in the UK:
The trade in personalized license plates in the UK can be big business — the most coveted ones aren’t given away, they are auctioned off at country clubs and manor houses. And in spite of a thing called “the recession” the record price paid for a specialty plate in the UK has just been broken, with a Lebanese property developer paying £352,411 ($513,047 USD) to own “1 D.” The actual winning bid was £285,000 ($414,893 USD), to which fees and taxes were added.
I think we should auction a few thousand liquor licenses, one hundred ‘smoking’ licenses (for places that want indoor smoking back), and twenty ‘adult entertainment’ licenses for strip clubs. The licenses would expire based on how much was paid for them (1-5K=1 year, 5-50K=three years, 50K+=five years). This would let us ‘allow’ places that have booze, smoking, and naked boobies, but prevent them from proliferating all willy-nilly. Also, -auctioning- them off would guarantee that the state and city collect the maximum dollar amount for them!
I think we should also solve this whole ‘overnight parking’ issue in Providence by issuing expensive ($350 for two years?) ‘overnight parking’ plates for Providence residents who -really- want to park on the street. Forcing the enforcement based on RI-issued plates would also have a side-effect of getting lots of students and half-timers to register their cars here, boosting our coffers via the fees and boosting local insurance businesses.