The County Line
- Volume 51, Number 2 - 2007
Making Alabama's roads safe will take time and money.
The story of the Good Samaritan is a familiar one, used by Jesus to teach us to help our neighbors, no matter their outward appearance or status in life. But the other day the story crossed my mind for another reason.
For almost 10 years we have worked on various plans to clean up Alabama’s outdated, unworkable, unfair and disconnected business licensing statutes. On at least three different occasions we have invested a great deal of time and association resources into the development of reform legislation that would benefit counties, businesses and the general public. But each time the proposal has been “left for dead”, because one group or another couldn’t agree to the changes necessary to help us make a step forward.
Our state’s business licensing process – like many things in Alabama – was put together in a piecemeal fashion with little planning or organization. It has never undergone a serious legislative update and many of the licenses sold in the courthouses today were established by legislative acts that are more that 70 years old.
The licensing system is based on a long list of products and business activities. As new businesses were created in the 1930s and 1940s, a new business license category would be created. The licenses are not based on any logic or relation to government costs, they represent the definition of “random.”
If a business engages in any of the specific activities on the list or if it sells any of the specific products enumerated on the list, then it must purchase the specific license for that activity or product. If a business is selling items not on the list, well, they are not required to purchase a license at all.
Doesn’t make sense, but that’s how it works.
For example, today you must have a state and county business license to be a palm reader or to sell playing cards – but you do not need a license to operate a lawn service. A jewelry store meets the definition of a “store” and therefore qualifies for a “store” license, which costs the business a mind-boggling $1! But a large national chain store that sells things other than jewelry must purchase other licenses and does not qualify as a “store.”
A convenience store that sells gasoline, soft drinks, playing cards, magazines and calculators (yes, there is a license for calculators!) may spend in the neighborhood of $220 per year on state and county licenses. A major chain store that sells everything under the sun and has more customers before noon on a Saturday than the convenience store will have in a good month, will spend about the same amount on its business licenses.
And then there are those professions that claim an exemption from the license altogether – such as banks, doctors, lawyers, architects, and others – some on the shakiest of legal and moral grounds. This means the licensing officials in each county must collect – and enforce – the business license requirements on many small businesses (like fruit stands and newspaper vendors) while these lucrative professions are allowed to operate without participating in the state and county business privilege license system at all.
You get the picture, like the Jewish traveler who had been left on the side of the road; Alabama’s business license system is in disparate need of a good neighbor who will stop and clean it up a bit.
We’ve tried on more than one occasion to be that good neighbor, but we’ve not succeeded. In fact, we’ve not even been successful in putting together a bill that can gain approval of a legislative committee – much less succeed on the floor of the House or Senate.
With the 2008 regular session of the Alabama Legislature in just a few months, we have started another effort at preparing legislation to address this important issue. At this point, our hopes for a complete overhaul of the licensing process – which would ensure that all businesses are licensed and that the license amount is somehow related to the services provided to the business – have been abandoned. We’ve tried that effort for almost a decade and there are groups that simply will not allow that to work.
This year we hope to tackle some of the most out-dated portions of the licensing process, creating an on-line renewal system for those businesses that are required to purchase a license and making the enforcement process more efficient on the county level. Hope always springs eternal, I’ve been told, but at this point it is very difficult to become optimistic about our chances for success.
Many of the individual product licenses can, and should, be combined into a general “store” license. And the fee for the “store” license must be increased beyond the outrageous amount of $1. Honestly, it costs the local government far more than $1 to process the license.
It is simply silly to require a business to purchase a separate license to sell playing cards or calculators. And it is embarrassing and counterproductive for a merchant to come to the courthouse to purchase the required licenses only to later get a citation for selling playing cards or soft drinks without a license.
For years we have used these examples and then stated proudly, “we can do better than that.” Well, at some point you begin to wonder if we really can “do better.” Each reform alternative has been rejected because it provided an increase in the fee structure that would be unacceptable or because it required the purchase of a license by some businesses that today escape the payment of the minimum license fees.
So, one final time we have stopped on the side of the road to pick up the traveler who was left for dead. We’re cleaning him up, giving him new cloths and getting him medical attention. Then we’re going to push him back out there into the legislative arena, where he will probably be left for dead again.
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