It would be cool to more actively engage with rivals, impede their expansion while helping your own and vice versa.
the player rivals can based on rng at times lease out spaces from under your nose and ‘steal’ potential areas. likewise the player can get a pop up event or notification that another party is in the process of renting a space, allowing the player to potentially outbid them in a sense to impede their expansion. if you see that a rivals shop in not clean you can pay to call in a inspector who will assess the place and if it is unclean they will place a temporary de buff. you can get random pop ups claiming that you/rival have found evidence of malpractice or negligence and are now able to sue through your law firm. likewise if you fire someone your rival can fund a lawsuit of theirs to sue you with the inverse being a pop up of a disgruntled ex employee seeking help with a lawsuit.
If you want to go to a unlawful route you can invest further into your nightclub to have the unlawful type available to you whom will have abilities to a specific location. This can range from vandalism to theft to blocking the stores ability to operate for the day. they can also for a very hefty price do something like a ‘plant false crime scene’ thing which closes the business and puts the space up for rent, incentivizing security in all businesses. you can cut supplies and other activities to actively contend with rivals. you can also have the ability to see how your rival stacks up against you in terms of size in district and size in specific markets.