Fire regs are getting rewritten, John Lee said in his policy address this week. Fine. But before you get excited, let's talk about how these things usually go here. Government says "reform." Government means "new form to fill in." Nobody has said yet who checks the buildings, how often, or what happens to the landlord who ignores the letter.

Look at the taxi thing. Government cracked down on illegal ride-hailing back in June, said it was cleaning up a mess. Real mess, real problem. But the ones actually getting fined were mostly the small drivers, not whoever's been running the syndicate operations for years. Reform sounds great in the press release. Then it lands on whoever can't afford a lawyer. Watch who the fire rules actually get enforced against, and you'll know if this one's different.