Business Licenses

Owners of the Leaky Tiki bar accused the City Council last week of racism in revoking their entertainment permit. "We will fight this in court," said Janet Escobosa, an owner of the bar. "Until three months ago, I ran the only Mexican bar in La Habra where you can listen to Mexican music and speak Spanish. (The City Council) is discriminating against us."

UPDATED 4:34 P.M. SACRAMENTO -- The tax man is coming for a visit. The California Board of Equalization announced Monday that it's sending inspectors to retailers and businesses in 34 state ZIP Codes to make sure their sales tax and business license documents are in order. The visits also have an educational purpose: to answer questions about how the state sales and use tax functions and provide advice on how to collect the levy more efficiently. The good news about the inspection program is that nearly all of the affected businesses are correctly following the law, said board Chairman Jerome E. Horton.

UPDATED 4:34 P.M. SACRAMENTO -- The tax man is coming for a visit. The California Board of Equalization announced Monday that it's sending inspectors to retailers and businesses in 34 state ZIP Codes to make sure their sales tax and business license documents are in order. The visits also have an educational purpose: to answer questions about how the state sales and use tax functions and provide advice on how to collect the levy more efficiently. The good news about the inspection program is that nearly all of the affected businesses are correctly following the law, said board Chairman Jerome E. Horton.

Two massage parlors may lose their licenses after employees were arrested on suspicion of prostitution in recent weeks. The South Pasadena City Council, which in recent years has wrestled with concerns about a proliferation of massage parlors, scheduled hearings regarding the businesses for March 7. South Pasadena police arrested Massage Villa owner Ling Ling Kuo, 44, of Alhambra on Feb. 10 on suspicion of operating a disorderly house....

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors last week approved an increase in business license fees for the 1989-90 fiscal year. The cost of getting a business license in the county increased anywhere from $20 to $513.

The city has raised annual business license fees for the first time, a move that some economic leaders fear will force small companies to close or move. The fees, which had been a flat $10 since the city incorporated in 1960, will rise to between $50 and $3,000, depending on a business' square footage and number of employees. The increases could be a hardship as the recession lingers, said Jeff Casey, executive director of the Industrial Council, a Commerce business organization.

Businesses could soon be paying twice as much to renew their licenses, and new establishments also might have to pay more under a proposal that the City Council will consider Tuesday. Officials are considering a proposal to boost the annual business license renewal fee to $12 from $6. The change would raise about $96,000 in new revenue, based on the current average of 16,000 business licenses a year, Deputy City Administrator Robert Franz said.

Following the lead of other cities, the Norwalk City Council has imposed a temporary ban on adult business licenses. The 45-day moratorium, which took effect May 2, prevents anyone from opening an adult movie theater, nude cabaret or adult bookstore while city officials review and revise existing regulations. Norwalk does not have any adult establishments but allows them in industrial and commercial zones, City Manager Ernie Garcia said.

The City Council has approved changes in Irvine's business license ordinance in an effort to standardize fees and encourage more businesses to seek permits. Last week's council action significantly reduces the cost to businesses for annual license fees and the penalties charged for operating a business without a license. City officials estimated that about 20%--or 2,000--of all businesses in Irvine do not hold current business licenses. Bernard M.

Voters will decide in November whether to double the city's business license tax to make up for income lost to inflation since the tax was last increased in 1978. The proposed increase would raise an additional $300,000 a year. During the last fiscal year, income generated by the tax amounted to 1.3% of the city's general fund--half the 1978 level. The increased tax would bring business tax revenue back up to about 2.6%, which is the average for California cities.

For years, activists against illegal immigration pushed cities across California to adopt ordinances ordering businesses to verify that their employees were eligible to work in the U.S. Several cities, including Temecula, Murrieta and Lake Elsinore, complied and required businesses to enroll in E-Verify, an online program that uses federal databases to check the immigration status of workers. Those that refused could face fines or revocation of their business licenses . But those victories appear to have been wiped out this month with legislation signed into law that prohibits the state, cities and counties from mandating that private employers use E-Verify.

Schmidt reports for Spot.Us, a website affiliated with the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. Once a week, Naty Aguilar drives with friends from her East Los Angeles neighborhood to a wholesale warehouse downtown. Pooling their money, they buy boxes packed with the kinds of things that a general neighborhood store might carry: small toys, towels, soaps, shampoos and electronics. Then they head home, divide the haul and lay out the wares in their frontyards so that neighbors can shop.

State auditors Thursday said they had found a third instance in which the city of Bell collected taxes illegally, bringing to $5.6 million the amount owed to taxpayers and raising questions about how the struggling town will balance its books. In a letter to Bell officials, state Controller John Chiang said the city had failed to get the required voter approval as it hiked business license taxes by more than 50% over the last decade. The exact amount overcharged is unknown, but Chiang estimated it at more than $2.1 million.

A group of Los Angeles medical marijuana collectives that will be required to shut down under the city's new ordinance has sued to prevent the law from being enforced, alleging that it "arbitrarily and capriciously" makes their operations illegal. In two lawsuits filed late Tuesday, 21 collectives challenged the City Council's decision to allow only those dispensaries that registered with the city in 2007 to stay open. The dispensaries that filed the suits have valid city business licenses but did not register by the deadline or opened afterward.

Businesses operating in the city of Lancaster will be required to ensure that all new hires are eligible to work in the United States by using an Internet-based federal program to check the immigration and employment eligibility of potential workers. The free online program, called E-Verify, allows participating employers to use federal databases to compare information provided by job seekers with millions of records kept by the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

Determined to slash the number of Section 8 renters in Lancaster, officials are proposing amendments to the city's rental housing ordinance that would allow business licenses to be withheld from landlords who want to rent to low-income tenants with federal vouchers. Officials contend that there are more than 2,300 residential units occupied by Section 8 tenants in their city, about 12% of the total number of vouchers administered by the Housing Authority of Los Angeles County.

In an effort to increase revenue, the City Council today will consider an ordinance that would require business owners to pay a license tax based on gross receipts instead of a flat rate. City officials estimate that the city could bring in an additional $500,000 a year with a business license tax based on 0.1% of gross sales or a minimum tax of $100 a year--double the current rate. The city is facing a $1.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the state's tough new law penalizing or even closing businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Under the law, which took effect early this year, business licenses can be suspended or revoked. The measure is considered the strongest in the nation against employing illegal immigrants. Businesses and immigrant rights groups challenged it, arguing that it intrudes on the federal government's right to regulate immigration. The three-judge panel disagreed.