Business licenses are revenue items that were dealt a rather severe blow by the Supreme Court. No government entity can take a "right" and turn it into a "licensable privilege". Cite the case in court and you will get a rapid dismissal "with prejudice". It comes down to neighborhood politics. Keep your neighbors happy and the self-important bureaucrats can go on their happy ignorant way. I operate a piano store and piano teaching studio out of my home in a city. Andrew Anderson On Jul 15, 2010, at 12:22 PM, Paul T Williams wrote: > David, > > I was always curious that if we are licensed in the city in which we > live as well as the state, do we also have to have a license for all > the surrounding cities in which we work? (It doesn't matter now, > since I'm a CAUT), but I didn't ever know if I was bending some sort > of law living in Clinton, WA, but doing business all around Puget > Sound. > > Best, > Paul > > > > From: "David Stocker" <firtreepiano at hotmail.com> > To: <pianotech at ptg.org> > Date: 07/15/2010 11:54 AM > Subject: Re: [pianotech] Probelm with Business License. Please help! > > > > > A huge problem for us is that the laws and codes are written by > people who are educated into thinking commercial can only mean > retail stores or industrial businesses. Our kind of business does > not exist in their perception of the universe. The city I grew up in > and started my business in made it literally impossible for me to > remain, thereby losing my taxes. The county here classifies me the > same as a piano teacher; which means if I have no sign, no employees > and do nothing outside, they don't care. In Washington state there > is no licensing of businesses by the county, only by the state and > cities. A business license is not the same as an occupation permit. > > You might ask about the procedure for re-zoning your property. > Sometimes it is not as onerous as you might think, and you may be > presenting your cause to a committee of citizens rather than > bureaucrats. > > David Stocker, RPT > Tumwater, WA > > > From: Hy Cohen > Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2010 02:47 > To: pianotech at ptg.org > Subject: [pianotech] Probelm with Business License. Please help! > > Hi everyone, > > I just moved here to California a couple of weeks ago, and am > working on getting my business plan assembled so I can soon start my > piano tech business. > > As part of that process, I gave a call over to my county to find out > how much a business license would be (I live outside the city > limits). They told me $415. But then they asked where I would be > operating my business, so I explained to them that it would be a > home-based business where I will perform a majority of my services > at my clients’ location and that once in a while I would take a part > home to work on using manual hand tools which are pretty quiet, and > that my business would not generate any additional traffic, etc. She > then asked me for my address, so I gave it to her. > > Just as soon as I gave her my address she announced that I could not > run my business where I live! She said the property is zoned as > agriculture, and because I would occasionally bring something home > with me to work on that it would be considered a commercial > operation which would not be allowed under the property’s zoning. > Any thoughts…besides moving or pretending I didn’t hear what the > lady said? <grin> I’ve left messages for the city to find out if I > lived there if I would run into the same problem, but they haven’t > called back. In your experience, am I likely to run into this > problem living in a city? We are planning to move into a city in the > near future. But with this goofy problem, we might be moving sooner > rather than later. <grin> Thanks for your advice! > > Warmly, > Hy > frowninverter at gmail.com > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100715/4c73afc6/attachment.htm>
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