RICHMOND —
The proposed city ordinance designed to crack down on businesses that operate in Richmond without buying a license and paying taxes would charge itinerant businesses much higher fees that other business.
The new charge for an initial Richmond business license would rise from $25 to $50 if the ordinance is adopted up on second reading. Annual renewals would cost $25.
First reading of the ordinance was heard July 24.
However, that is for businesses with a permanent site within the city.
For those that pass through the city temporarily, conducting business on roadsides or sidewalks, in tents, from vehicles, door-to-door or in parks, the cost of a license would be $250 for three days. Additional days would cost $50 each, with a maximum cost of $500.
Because itinerant businesses could leave town without paying Richmond’s 2-percent net profits tax or their employees’ 2-percent license fee, the city would be wise to collect its fees up front, Mayor Jim Barnes said in a Monday interview.
At the July 24 meeting, some city commissioners asked if vendors at the city’s July 4 celebration or the Great American Festival in early September would be required to buy a $250 business license.
After learning that would be the case, Barnes said the commission would reconsider that issue when it meets for a work session at 1 p.m. Aug. 7 at Irvinton House on Lancaster Avenue.
The city’s tourism office is housed in the Irvinton House.
If an exception is not made for festival vendors, the $250 license fee would have a crippling effect on The Great American Festival, formerly the Pottery Festival, said Lori Murphy-Tatum, the city’s tourism director.
Vendors are normally charged a $50 booth rental fee at the festival. If an additional $250 was charged for a business license, the $300 cost would exceed the profit that some festival vendors make at the event, Tatum said.
When an ordinance is drafted, often using other city’s laws as models, unintended consequences may not be apparent, Barnes said.
One reason for reading an ordinance twice before adoption is to give the public a chance to provide feedback, the mayor said. Even after adoption, an ordinance can always be revised, he added.
Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@
richmondregister.com
or at 624-6622.
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Itinerant businesses would face $250 license fee
Effect on festival vendors feared
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