Ep7 - Business Licensing
Welcome to Mighty Municipalities, the podcast about small municipalities and how they can punch above their weight. I'm your host, Carl McAllister, and along with my cohost, Mark Parton, and our guests, we take you through the highs and lows of working in a small municipality. Whether it's hardship and frustration that is holding you back or the progress and wins that are propelling you forward, we're here to share the lessons learned and give you the strategies to help improve your community. Well, Mark, happy weekend evening again.
Speaker 2:All right. Yes. How
Speaker 1:are you doing?
Speaker 2:Said last time was an exception, but two times in a row may be a trend. Yes.
Speaker 1:Right. Hopefully not. Hopefully not.
Speaker 2:Get That's
Speaker 1:back on track here. Well, today we have a topic that is both near and dear to my heart, because it was one of the founding, features of Golf Possible and also one of the founding things I did with the City of Sumter way back in, I think 2003 or something when we were first looking at, and that wasn't even with Gov Possible. That was just in consulting with the city when we were trying to do some rebalancing and that is around a Business License.
Speaker 2:Yes. So Business License and and one reason we thought about this topic is in the state of South Carolina, April is renewal month. So we thought, well, what better time to talk about Business License than on an April podcast. So that's what we hope to share with you today. And as Carl said, he's really been working in this area for quite some time now on both just as a practical logistical side, as well as on the programming side of GovPossible.
Speaker 2:But what we thought we'd do today is learn a little bit more about business license and then talk about some specific topics. So Carl, what I wanted to start out with asking you is what exactly is the business license? And then if you could follow that up with, I know you work in several different states. If you could tell us some of the basic differences between our neighborhood, our neighbor states. Right.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah. So, I mean, business licensing is interesting in that it's you know, it's called a, a license to the when you're thinking of a license, like a driver's license, right? It's that idea of you are achieving some sort of requirements to be able to do something, whether it's a hunter's license or a business or a driver's license or something like that. And in the term business licensing, we have that built into it. The idea that this is something that permits you to do something within a municipality.
Speaker 1:And that's largely true. But then there's also this part of it where, especially around South Carolina, of course, and as codified in the recent, South Carolina Business License Standardization Act, the idea that this is also a legal revenue generation program for municipalities and counties throughout the state. And that's different from some of our neighboring states to a certain extent. Specifically, very different from North Carolina, who I think it was back in, I was working with municipalities at around the time they did it. I want say it was around like 2005 or so when the state assembly there restricted municipalities and kept them from using it as a revenue generating platform where it had to be just around regulation and they dictated a very specific flat dollar amount that they had to use.
Speaker 1:And as a result, because many municipalities were again in that idea of business licensing that we have here in South Carolina, using it for both. Once they're especially with the rate that was set, once it became clear that for many municipalities that just was not a viable operation, that they could do all the work that required licensing and pay for the bill with the registration fee that the assembly had set. Now, are certainly still a number of municipalities in North Carolina that regardless do that program. So, know, it's still around in North Carolina, but in North Carolina, is very much around the regulation and that permitting type thing. And many municipalities that are still using it focus on the regulation of, let's say, industries that are more concerning to their fellow citizens, you know, whether that's you know, your THC facilities or CBD facilities, whichever one's the legal one, and whether that's your, you know, nightclubs, pull halls, things like that.
Speaker 1:That becomes much more focus. In Georgia, on the other hand, they're so much more like us except that the regulation from the state is that it's whereas in South Carolina, it's anybody who's generating revenue within the municipal limits. In Georgia, it's only those that are, I think are domiciled, right? So, they have some sort of physical location. So, that could be a franchise that has multiple places and one of them happens to be in the town.
Speaker 1:Or it could be a, you know, we're going to talk about a brokerage, like if a real estate agent has an office in the town, then that gets taxed. But if the real estate agent doesn't have an office in the town and they're selling homes inside the municipality, they do not get taxed. So, it's only on your domiciled businesses. So, that's a, you know, a very different
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, both from a regulation standpoint and from a revenue, revenue generation standpoint. I think that gets very, very interesting as far as what you can regulate because then, you know, when we're talking about the regulation side and- and you were talking about that tension, your hands are tied on exactly what, on some of the things that you can regulate, right? If you can potentially regulate and hold the feet to the fire of the landscaper in town, but if he does a bad job and you revoke his license, he can then theoretically move out of town and now he can do whatever he wants to, right? It's a different, a very different beast. And they do call it more of an occupational tax.
Speaker 1:You'll see a lot of municipalities still call it a business license. That was the traditional name, but now it is called an occupational tax. So, that is where one of the things where the differences have been reflected in the naming of the program as well as those things have changed. So, that is at least a survey. And I think there are, if I recall, about 16 or 17 states who do business licensing more like us in Georgia, and that it is more of a revenue raising.
Speaker 1:Right. Or has a revenue raising component. Whereas, then there are probably maybe another 10 or so that are more like North Carolina where it's strictly a registration regulation component, and they're very much limited in what they can or what they raise around it.
Speaker 2:In South Carolina, I know specifically, we, you know, with the, the renew renewed act that was passed a few years ago, you mentioned specifically it required all municipalities to use the NAICS code as a basis for classifying businesses. So talk a little bit about what that looks like and how different businesses fall into those different classes within, you know, the business license of the Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the NAICS code, and you'll hear this thrown about if you register for a municipality and it's, you know, if you're not in the business, it's hard to understand what that is. So, that is the North American Industrial Classification System. And what that means is the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, and I think along with, you know, the reason why it's North American is along with Canada and Mexico, laid out a way of like, just like, you know, when you I'm old. So, was it?
Speaker 1:Just like, know, library, things are organized there and it's broken down by type of topic. The North American classification system does the exact same thing for industries. So, and when they say industry, they just mean business. And so, the North American makes, we'll say from now on, so it breaks, you know, all of your construction stuff into it's a six digit number. So we're talking about like, you know, '0 to nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine theoretically.
Speaker 1:So like three hundred and forty thousand to three hundred and fifty thousand nine hundred and ninety nine for instance is all, and I think I got this right, is all contractors, right? It's all like construction based business, all that stuff is in there. And then there's another section that's for retail. And then there's another section for hospitality, another section for automotive, manufacturing, agriculture, all the things. So that way there is then a way to statistically look at, well, you know, what percent you can then start asking questions like what percentage of a city's industry is retail?
Speaker 1:And more importantly to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, what percentage of that is national, right? And how have those things changed over time? You read articles about how we're becoming much more of a service economy, right? And how things have transitioned from to restaurants and to, you know, clothing stores and professional services and landscaping. Well, how they know that is because over the years they've been measuring, well, thing, how many industries do we have or how many companies do we have that are doing manufacturing?
Speaker 1:How many are we are doing restaurants and how that number has changed over time by funneling all the businesses across the country into this classification system. So, that's what the, the NAICS code is. And what that then does is that lets the when we're talking about our business license here in South Carolina, one of the things the Bureau of Labor Statistics does is say, well, on average, everybody in this industry makes about this percent of profit. And so, that then dictates exactly how much the business license is. By state law, the state with the Municipal Association looks at all of those codes, looks at all of them by profitability and then breaks them down into basically seven tiers.
Speaker 1:So class one through class seven, the class seven people who are making them basically the most out of, let's say the class one people make $5 for every thousand dollars of revenue they generate. The class seven people make, you know, 500 out of every thousand dollars that they generate. And so the tax then is higher for the people who make more money per thousand than the people who make less. And so that way it's an equal burden on every business. And that's said again, has been held up through Act 176 and case law that that is a fair way to register this.
Speaker 2:Right. Thank you. Great explanation. And I know, as I said, the recent act required everyone to use the same code. And in general, the, the South Carolina new act also line everybody up to have same renewal dates and it was supposed to be a more business friendly Yes.
Speaker 2:Standardization across the board. And and making things modern, you know, as you know, particularly with Go Possible that you have to be able to do your business online. The business can go online and easily take care of things. And so it really was a modernization act that was supposed to be more business friendly.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And, you know, think about, you know, for most of us, you know, that are small businesses we're working in, we have our business in our town. We just pay it. We do whatever the municipality says. Well, think about if you're a Dollar General, right, and you now have 50 or 500 locations across the state.
Speaker 1:Well, there were, what, 140 different municipalities participating and maybe 70 of them all had that April deadline. But the other 70, you know, some of them had it well, it was based on when you register, some of it was based on the new year, some of it had April 1 versus April 30. I remember, I think we and Sumter had actually like February 15 and March 15, you know, based on the, whether it was, I think, city or county. And so if you were a, you know, if you were one of those larger companies trying to figure out when I had to pay what, you actually had to have like one additional staff person just for South Carolina because you had to have, you know, more than you had for other states because of all these different rules. And so yes, Act 176, it really was, you know, to try to make it simpler for the businesses.
Speaker 1:And as part of that, of course, there's also then the state portal that, you know, is a joint collaboration between the Municipal Association and the state, that allows companies like that, especially to basically go into one spot and pay across all those things so that they can do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, South Carolina is known, I think rightly so, as a business friendly state. So, this is just one effort that the state house made towards encouraging business in South Carolina.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And it's a recognition, again, going to that idea of revenue versus regulation. You know, a business, you know, let's say, you know, a restaurant has people coming in from, from out of town, outside the municipal limits. They are using the services of the streets depending on the number of streets that are city owned. And as we talked about previously, that's going get more and more.
Speaker 1:They're using police services to help keep themselves safe so they're not held up so that there's not any issue on their parking lot. So there's no robberies. They're getting improved fire insurance, you know, rates because of the, of everyone in municipality paying towards having good fire service. If they're a utility, they're using the water and sewer, which then has, you know, of course some component that is a shared revenue piece between the city as the city fund and the utility as the utility fund. And all of these things the business is using the services of.
Speaker 1:And so the state legislature confirmed and recognized that there is a place for the business to help cover some of those services over and above just what the residents of the community have. Because of course you could have a business in a community but not be part of the community. You know, the reasoning for the business license and having it be a part of a revenue generation is to to cover those services so the business has a good place to do business in. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, you've mentioned a few times the difference between revenue versus regulation, as the goal or or shared goals of business licensing. So, let's let's talk a little bit about that. People who choose it to to be used as a regulatory tool, how is that done beyond just you've met requirements to go into business, but then maybe there's an issue with business. So how would a municipality or a county go about using it as a regulatory tool beyond just the setting up of a business?
Speaker 1:And I think that's where, you know, in some cases, right, that's policy and or regulation above and beyond what's strictly required by Act 176. Because again, 176 is definitely treating it more as a revenue generation tool with some standard sets of, again, those seven classes and then some standard sets of things that, you know, because of the law contractors and how they can be treated a little differently, things like that. Some additional ways that that business can get categorized. But beyond that, many many municipalities have concerns about specific type of of of industries. For instance, again, going back to nightclubs.
Speaker 1:Nightclubs are great. Many people enjoy having a good time, hanging out with their friends, doing all those kinds of things. But in general, just statistically, there's more likely to because there's a bunch of people around late at night, there's potentially alcohol involved, There's more of a case of conflict happening at one of those locations. So, they incur more police services. And so, you know, municipalities, again, as part of that, you know, the business should help cover the cost of what it's incurring, you know, may charge a different rate for those types of businesses.
Speaker 1:So, that's kind of the first piece of, I think, where the regulations kind of involve looking at some of these industries. And when I say industry, some of these types of businesses that may incur more services. And so starting with that, then you're, then you get into the thing of, well, again, because of that word license, you know, there's some level of implication. And again, I'm not getting into the legal of how implied that is, but again, the public perception, legal requirements or anything like that, but there's a public perception both among some of your citizens potentially, as well as some of your elected council members that licensing means there's some sort of due diligence happening about whether this is a business that is, and I'm using air quotes here, which you can't see in the podcast, good for the municipality as a whole, right? Is it doing everything it should?
Speaker 1:And so that's where, and again, that's not really covered in Act 176. Act 176, this is all about businesses helping to pay their fair share based on their profitability and or their impact to the services to the municipality. But beyond that, again, municipalities think about this as well also, you know, hey, yeah, that's fine. But if I'm now, you know, again, licensing, if I'm giving permission for this business to be in place, what, you know, what do I feel comfortable as a municipality doing? And this gets much more into policy and or additional, ordinances that, you know, we'll we'll talk about here, I think, in in the podcast.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yeah. So I I think it is personally, I think it is important that we have the ability, and I'm speaking when I say we municipalities within South Carolina have the ability to do both the revenue generation as well as the regulation. Because to me, there's an inference that if you have the authority to issue permission, you also have the authority to revoke permission if somebody is, you know, repeatedly a public nuisance or they're not maintaining the standards that need to be maintained to provide a good, safe product. And I think this would fall under the police powers of municipalities as granted by the state to make sure that public health is taken care of, public safety is taken care of.
Speaker 2:So again, I think it's important that you have the ability to generate revenue, to cover the impact on those different types of businesses, as well as the regulation size for when things don't go well.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think the key pieces there, as you were talking about that, that popped in my head is that the yes, there is the enforcement and the ability to revoke based on them breaking laws that the police are enforcing. Right? So, that's kind of a, you know, after the fact, after issuance, there's the management of that. And that's clearly laid out.
Speaker 1:I think the standard business license ordinance that the Municipalities Association uses talks about the nuisance violations and things like that and the ability to revoke based on the nuisance. So, there's precedence and there's I think, clear legal standard and you can talk through the, you know, if they're breaking the law, then you have, you know, the ordinance lays out that you can revoke. And then the question is, what can you do to potentially prevent getting to that? And that's where things get more interesting, right? Because that's, that's what's not an Act 176.
Speaker 1:So, or in the Standard Business License Ordinance. So, and where I think that it gets very important for municipalities to think through. And again, I'm not a lawyer.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1:We have much more qualified people to talk to the legality of that, of this piece. So, you know, these are all our personal opinions. But the idea that it's important that if you as a administration decide, for example, that you want to do, you know, when a restaurant comes in, you want to make sure they have their fire inspection. Right? You want to make sure they have their DHEC issue, you know, their DHEC grades or, you know, their they're past their DHEC license.
Speaker 1:I can't remember what they call that certification.
Speaker 2:They
Speaker 1:have all those pieces in place. You know, maybe even, you know, I'm trying to think, know, maybe you're even having a, you know, and then of course maybe you have some zoning regulations around where it can be, things like that. Right. But all of those things are happening before. And so then it's a tension of if you as administration are thinking about that, and then you're starting to put that into place as policy for the Business License to go through and enforce, what do you have on the books that is telling that says this is actually a requirement of receiving a license?
Speaker 1:Which I think is important because otherwise if it's just policy, it all then gets into the next part, which is are you then treating everybody equally? Right? Because that's, I think, you know, in most of the case law I've looked at in this, which is not a lot, but the ones that I have looked at, a lot of it is, you know, are we treating everybody equally? Right? Because if you're letting some restaurants through or some food services through that have this, but some don't, and you know, more importantly, you're asking about some, but you're not asking about others, then you're treating the businesses differently.
Speaker 1:Oh, you know, no set determinable council backed ordinance. So, so that's where you can potentially get in trouble as staff. And I think that's where it's really important that if you're a municipality and wanting to say, Hey, you know, we want to step up and be good citizens. So we want to make sure there's a fire inspection. We want to make sure that the zoning is correct.
Speaker 1:We want to make sure that they have their DHEC certificate and we won't issue a license before that. That really should probably be an inordinate somewhere that says that for that type of for that type of business, for that type of NAICS code. Because I think otherwise, if it's just a policy, not that the policy itself is bad, but then you get it gets very interesting because it gets harder to prove whether you're treating everybody equally when you're doing it.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, you need to make sure you're one, treating everybody equally, but you're much better coverage if it's a state and municipal ordinance and it has the weight of law behind it versus it's just a policy that, you know, the administration has come up with because you're, you're effectively not allowing people to have a business to that point and that, you know, that that can get legal.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yes. Well, you know, you talked about treating each person equally. So, you know, one of the things we wanted to talk about is peddlers. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, some people say, well, they're only gonna be in town for three weeks. You know, they're they're canvassing the neighborhood doing selling, trying to sell their product or whatever their product happens to be. And, so why do they need a business license? So, because it's fair and equitable. I'm a brick and mortar business in the town, I'm paying for that privilege.
Speaker 2:So they should as well.
Speaker 1:Right. Yeah. And obviously not everybody, you know, if we're talking about the these days peddlers are much more insurance, car glass, and solar panels. Yes. And in the old days, where it might've been encyclopedias, right?
Speaker 1:And yeah, so yeah, even though they might not be in industries that are represented in your municipality, they're represented businesses that could be in your municipality and especially could be there if they weren't going around and taking up all the sales. And again, they do cause services to be used by people, you know, checking in with the police to see if this is legit, right? Checking in with the checking and complaining because they're a nuisance and they've knocked three times. All of those things are taking up administrative time to handle, police time to handle. And so, yeah, so they should, you know, so they do get regulation.
Speaker 1:Now, what gets interesting is the NAICS, the classification system used to have a specific classification for peddlers. So, it was relatively easy for us within the structure of Act one seventy six and within the structure of the Business License naturally to be able to separate them out because they were separate industrial class and say this industrial class, like a nightclub, you know, for instance, uses more services or uses services differently. And so, we can treat them differently based on that. And that was a natural way from the fall. Unfortunately, the industrial code, they revise it every two years because two years ago or four years ago, we didn't even have AI companies.
Speaker 1:Now we have AI companies. They continually revise the codes to keep up with the times. Well, peddler, the idea of a peddler, especially a classic idea of the music man or encyclopedia sales guy is very rare now. Of course, again, as we all know, if we have a house, you know, people coming up and asking for other things that still exists, but the idea of peddlers in general has become enough, small enough activity that nationally the federal government decided they didn't have an interest in tracking that anymore. And so, they got rid of that classification.
Speaker 1:So, that made it interesting for all of our municipalities because now we do not have a natural way to enforce it. Some municipalities therefore, you know, again, going back to the idea of what's a policy versus what's actually baked into your Business License Ordinance, have then written a separate ordinance to basically have a peddler's permit that does not require a business license. You still have the occupational revenue generation program tied to it because they still need to get a business license. It's just now, if I'm selling solar panels, my business license is in the solar panel NAICS code. If I'm selling car windows, I'm in the parts NAICS code versus just peddlers.
Speaker 1:So, Forest Acres most noticeably, I think, took the lead on this and put together an initial permit program that's at the discretion of the city administrator to evaluate and get them to register. So, making sure that the peddlers who are coming in are registered, are known by the city so that if somebody calls, they can say, yes, we know they're legitimate. They've they've come and asked us and, you know, or or presented themselves so we know they, you know, they're not felons. They're not, you know, trying to have some sort of scam for older people or things like that. And so, they've done that, again, to that idea of making sure you have that regulation side in as a separate ordinance and as a separate permit.
Speaker 1:That is still, as long as it's not specifically a revenue generating program and it's just their, you know, whatever revenue or fees it requires are strictly to cover costs. That is something, again, to my understanding of South Carolina State law, that is something that is completely allowable, you know, by the state ordinance for municipalities to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it, again, it brings some level of assurance that these are legitimate people who have been checked out. And I know many municipalities also put in their ordinance, the requirement of their background checks and different things like that. So again, it's just a another level of safety and comfort that you as the resident can have in this person knocking at your door. Of course, you know, there's always you still need to use your your common sense about who you open a door to and so forth.
Speaker 2:But but it does bring a certain level of comfort that otherwise may not be there. So that's, I think, an important part of having a peddler program at a municipal level.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And it's part of one of those things where, you know, as a municipality, you're trying to think through, you know, what is my citizenry going to expect of me? I think this also goes, know, along the same line of building permits, you know, it's like, well, why did this happen? Right? Why did you let this happen?
Speaker 1:Well, if enough people are like, why did you let this happen? Then that becomes an ordinance. That's democracy right there. So, you know, that's, that's something where, you know, the, the municipal officials, your administration, you know, you're always having of course a way of what do we need to take on to address the needs and desires of our citizens and how can we do it cost effectively, all those things. But, you know, this idea of, you know, people walking around, going door to door, you know, or, or of other industries that, you know, may cause concerns, you know, this, this is what, what we do as a municipality.
Speaker 1:These are the things we have to try to address.
Speaker 2:That's one of the things municipalities exist to do.
Speaker 1:Absolutely right.
Speaker 2:So let's move to a different example here, this is probably more specific to the state of South Carolina, but what is the difference in the filing of a business license for insurance agents versus brokers and maybe other professional services organizations? And again, we're not giving legal advice. We're speaking
Speaker 1:at policy level here. Right. Yeah. It's interesting because there's a very specific carve out in Act 176 for insurance agencies. And this came from, I think all the way back in the seventies and eighties, along the same lines and time of when cable and phone franchises were being discussed and regulated.
Speaker 1:In that, unlike even a Dollar General, which may have these days, he may have a store in every municipality. Right? They are choosing to build that store right there. When we're talking about insurance, from a safety standpoint and from a economic stability standpoint of the state, it's in the state's interest to a certain extent to make sure that everybody's covered. And we have regulations to that extent where, you know, you have to be covered as a driver to have insurance.
Speaker 1:So, the state is mandating that they're in every municipality at that point. And so, as part of that, my understanding was insurance agencies long before Act 176 were like this, that's fine. We understand that. But we can't go to all 150 municipalities that have business licenses and try to figure out. It'll be insane for us.
Speaker 1:And then we'll be charging the person in, and I'm just gonna choose two random cities here. So, we'll have the person, well, since we're going use Forest Acres, we have one person in Forest Acres paying $100 a month and another person in Columbia paying $125 a month. And it's solely because of business licensing and the impact of what they're charging us for what they consider fair for insurance. And so, you're widely varying your cost to your citizens. So, part of that was then for the insurance companies, there is a statewide regulated percentage that is collected at the state level, distributed down to municipalities based on who has which insurance.
Speaker 1:And that way that all gets taken care of. It eases all that administrative burden. If you're an insurance agency, as long as I'm if I'm I'm going to, and again, I don't know who has what, where, but you know, let's say I'm GEICO. I have, I'm selling across the state. I have representatives in Charleston, Columbus, North Augusta, Greenville, 15 different municipalities in the state.
Speaker 1:As GEICO, because those are my employees, I don't have to pay for them again. Now, however, if I'm Allstate and I don't have employees in there, I just let people sell for me and they have maybe some regulation on how much markup they can do and things like that. But they're choosing where they, again, like the Dollar General, they're choosing where they put their office. They're choosing, you know, who they, you know, how much staff they have to cover their business. All of those pieces, you know, as a broker, then that broker, because they're a separate company from the insurance agency, they're going to be subject to a business license tax.
Speaker 1:And that's laid out in Inc. 176. If I'm McDonald's and I own five McDonald's in the state, I'm going to be, you know, I could I could handle them all and I'm paying for all the, for all the business license taxes. However, once I start franchising, I'm not paying for the business license for the franchisee who happens to have one in, you know, in North Augusta. The franchisee is the one then responsible for that.
Speaker 1:I'm still supplying all the milkshake machines and the hamburgers and everything else, just like, you know, Allstate is providing the insurance to the brokerage. But the local franchisee, the local broker is paying their own licensing for that place. And that's, that's kind of the analogy.
Speaker 2:Yes. Okay. Good. And you know, that is an often misunderstood area of the business license field. It's worth taking a look at if you have questions about that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, well, there's an insurance collections program. Why would insurance and that means insurance is taken care of at the state level, right? And so it, you know, intuitively you think that's the case.
Speaker 1:And I did as well when I first started. Once McDonald's is not selling directly to the consumer, the the hamburger business license for that hamburger is is being paid by the local franchisee. It's the same kind of thing here.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Alright. Let's switch gears a little bit here and talk about if if I wanna I have an idea for starting a new business. And, one, I don't really know what to do to get started. And then, you know, what are some some ways business license can be set up to help an entrepreneur come that has a new idea, you know, do things appropriately.
Speaker 2:And so what are some some ways that can be used?
Speaker 1:Yeah. This is something near and dear to my heart. Many of my municipalities that I work with are smaller municipalities, more rural municipalities. And a lot of them, their unemployment rate's significantly higher than the state average and probably even the national average. And so, their issue is not trying to find the right people for all these job openings.
Speaker 1:It's more of a, we welcome as much as possible anybody trying to start their own business. And so this goes back to that idea of regulation versus revenue, where as a small municipality, you really want to let people try their own hand at entrepreneurship if they feel like they can do it. But then the challenge is what the state allows from a health and environmental standpoint. And again, understandably, the job at the state level when they're looking at it is how do I keep people from getting food poisoning? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right. And people going to the hospital unnecessarily. So, it's not yeah. They're not taking an unfair stand. But at the same time, if you're in one of these rural counties with 10% plus unemployment and somebody wants to come in and start selling hot dogs, part of you really wants to let them go and sell those Right?
Speaker 1:Hot And so, a lot of it is that what is the as that municipality, again, I have to think about what is my role in that regulation versus DHEC. And again, going back to what you said, Mark, about the idea of the police enforcing it, is that a nuisance ordinance? Is that where DHEC is then cracking down on them and then coming and telling us, and then we're like, okay, you're breaking the law. Now we will revoke your license or something like that, right? So, there's a lot of, a lot of angles at play and a lot of different perspectives at play, that are very different for our smaller rural municipalities than for our larger municipalities, both here in the state and across the Southeast across the country.
Speaker 1:To, you know, you want to let your, you know, your neighbor down the street, you know, they've had hard times, but man, they, they grill some really good ribs. Wouldn't it be great to let them sell that to other people and just being able to afford to send their kids with better stuff to school? It is not an easy moral answer. But having said that, as the municipality, you have to make that decision. Now, one of the other things we can do is help try to steer people towards things that they can do with relatively less regulation.
Speaker 1:And again, the biggest thing for, and again, rightly so, don't get me wrong, rightly so for health departments is anytime you have food that's being prepared that where the temperature is going up and down, you're increasing the chance of bacteria, you're increasing the chance of getting people sick. So, what are the things we can do that still give you ability to start a business, maybe get yourself started, and maybe work your way up to where you can have the facility for a kitchen or find the local community college and where you finally have a good enough vehicle where you can get there and do your food preparation beforehand and things like that. So, that that's kind of the the starting point for what I start to think of as far as what are the things we can do. This is something that's been relatively new for me as I've been pondering this. You know, I think one of the things that would be interesting, you know, and looking forward to working with some with is what can we do as far as educating those people coming in of like, hey, here are here are some things you can think about, you know, that maybe fit your, skill set that are easy to get started, with.
Speaker 1:And Mark, I don't know if you've had any thoughts on this side as well.
Speaker 2:Just in general, haven't, or I haven't been in on conversations specifically about just Business License, but in in general, I know at least our Chamber of Commerce and some other organizations around town have talked about the importance of educating people on how to start up different types of businesses because most people want to do what's right. And in many cases, they genuinely don't know. So part of the process of helping people get started is educate them on these are some of the things you're required to do. But then to your point also, maybe if somebody has an entrepreneurial drive with certain skills, then you might be able to help them fine tune that. And this might be an area that you can go into that is does have a lower cost to get in as well as lower requirements.
Speaker 2:So while I I like I said, I don't really have experience specifically from a Business Licensing department. I've been part of those conversations with other organizations who are, you know, coaching and training entrepreneurs on this is how things are done. And I know, you and I have talked about some startup boot camps.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:You know, various different places that that do that. And I know you're involved in one in the Columbia area. But, you know, that's that's a good whether it's a formal boot camp program, but having a type of boot camp system set up so that people do see, oh, if I'm interested in this skill, these are some opportunities I have to start a business that is relatively Mhmm. You know, low low cost as well as low risk to get into to encourage a more economic growth in your community as well as, just personal growth for the individual to better themselves and their family and the opportunities they have. So, yeah, I think there are some neat things that can be done in this area.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Right. Whether that's reaching out to your cog and seeing if they have something, like you said, to your chamber of commerce, maybe working with them. Because as a municipality, especially if you're a small one, you may not have the staff and or frankly the knowledge to be the entrepreneur center. But take a look in at what you have in the community, maybe even if that's the community college in the next town, working with them to craft some, literature that you can have at the desk about what things people can do and pieces like that.
Speaker 1:And again, this is something I'm thinking about templating up for some of my municipalities from this standpoint because I think it would be useful to have some handouts and leave behinds and things like that that they can point people to with you know, a little bit of research of, know, who is the closest community college that maybe has an entrepreneurship program or a small business or a commercial kitchen. Right? Going back to the idea of, you know, you can you can grill ribs if you, you know, if you you pre cook them and then prepackage them and they're maintained. There's things you can do to still maybe achieve your dream or achieve what you're, you know, where you think your talent is. As of course, all of us, you know, guys think we're the best grillers.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Right.
Speaker 2:We won't talk about barbecue here. We might start some more.
Speaker 1:That's true. Right. Yeah. That's true. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's good stuff.
Speaker 1:As Carl
Speaker 2:mentioned, the, the, technical college system in South Carolina is located all over. So every county has access to different colleges. So you're never too far away from a community college if in South Carolina if you need to reach out to someone. And then also the University of South Carolina at several of their regional campuses have a small business service. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Not saying the right name, but they have a a a program set up for small businesses. So Absolutely. If you have questions like that, reach out to as many different sources as you can in addition to, the COG and your chamber of commerce and other agencies that you may be familiar with. Because there are a lot of people out there wanting to help and willing to help you get started and get started well.
Speaker 1:Right. And to that, you know, just I wanted to mention, there are a few things that the, DHEC specifically talks about that are outside of, you know, the, where they're not worried about regulation. Some of them may be fairly obvious. And then there are also some things that are both, you know, just there's no certification program required and or are specifically outside of going on the construction side outside of LRR regulation. Just to talk about, you know, one of the things I've seen a lot in some larger municipalities, and from what I can tell, as long as you get your business license completely legal, you've ever seen, if you've been near a construction site in a larger city and the car comes up and they've got the cooler full of sodas and they've got the Twinkies and the chips.
Speaker 1:Yes. And all of that is prepared food, right? And as long as it's prepared wrapped food like that, that is something you can, you know, you can you can sell from, you know, as far as roadside food is concerned. And what's kind of more interesting, that also falls outside those regulations according to the, the roadside food, the DHEC pamphlet that we'll share in the show notes, popcorn, coffee, and snow cones are also not regulated. So you can, you can have any of those without, you know, without having to get a DHEC certification.
Speaker 2:And I'm sure if your child or grandchild wants to set up a lemonade stand on the front yard, I'm sure that will be okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That, I mean, yes, there so it will actually, which ironically, I think to a certain extent falls under the home based food production law. So there's, and again, we'll share this link, but there are a bunch of things that you can make at home. You've got a label that you've made it at home. And I think you do have to tell DHEC so that way in case there is an illness, they can trace it back to that.
Speaker 1:But you don't have to get certified. So, for instance, cookies, you know, again, going back to your idea of the lemonade stand, you can you can bake cookies in your house and sell them under food home based food production. Honey production actually falls there's a home based food production and there's another honey house, certification that both allow you to sell amounts of honey, for, you know, without being certified, because of it. It's got enough antibiotic properties. As a beekeeper, I will tell you, that, yeah, it, it, again, you've got a label that it was home based and what city and, you know, put your contact information on.
Speaker 1:But that is true for a lot of things. And again, for a number of not a lot of things, but a number of things that you can produce at home, canning, things like that, that as long as you label it as such, not only can you sell it, but in certain circumstances other places can sell it as well. And that's where you see like those local food, you know, pop up things in grocery stores and stuff like that that fall under that. That is definitely one. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So, there are a number of things you can do around that. And sell at, you know, farmers markets, community fairs, things like that. And then going into the professions, mowing, raking, lawn aeration, these are all things that people can do. I'm sure every town has at least a few people doing car washing and detailing, but again, that is something that there's not really regulation around that you can do. A couple of things I looked up when I was trying to think of more out of the box things, what I found interesting was kind of an extension of that mowing and raking was the idea of lot cleaning or clearing.
Speaker 1:So, when I was looking through these, there was a story of one guy who started and just did parking lot cleaning for other businesses. And again, that doesn't take much. You just have to then you're paying whatever your pounds are at the dump to dump the stuff off when you're done and just did a really good job of that. Probably expanded into line painting from there and then maybe resurfacing later on, but expanded that into a multi state business that was just doing a really good job of keeping, cleaning, clearing because most businesses want that and most businesses don't have the time to send out their employees and frankly their employees don't want to do it, so they don't do a great job at it, all those kinds of things. Going into that, even short of landscaping itself.
Speaker 1:And then lot clearing, again, just you've got two acres behind the store, behind your building, you just want to get rid of everything. They get it down to brush basically. Again, that takes a little more equipment, but that's very doable as well. Another one I thought that was interesting out there, and these start to take some equipment, is knife sharpening. One, I mean, that is a relatively heavy, wet stone.
Speaker 1:I've seen several farmers markets and things like that charging $5 a knife or something like that. And if you're doing two minutes per knife to sharpen it up, you can make a few $100 easily at a farmer's market, things like that, doing that kind of thing. And you could just get a whetstone and some oil for $10 and start doing that.
Speaker 2:The
Speaker 1:other one I thought was interesting was pressure washing. That obviously takes a little more. You've got to get yourself a pressure washing machine, but you can get an electric one that plugs into the person, the house of the person that you're doing it for, a relatively low one that does the basic cleaning. We have one of those at our house just to clean off our cement driveway and stuff like that on an annual basis kind of thing. But a lot of people don't have those.
Speaker 1:And so, that basic pressure washing stuff, the siding, it doesn't take that much equipment wise. And then just if they want soap, you charge them for the soap. A lot of these are always jobs that people know need to be done, they don't want to. And so, I think that's an interesting one. And then finally, I was reading through the LRR regulations for permitting thing, frankly, a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1:And I noticed that they said painting specifically was not under LRR regulations. So, you can be a painter if you know, if you have that talent, it's something that you can definitely go out and do. Know, if you're frankly, if you get good at it, it's something where, you know, I'm sure other contractors are looking for those bill for subcontractors all the time to do that kind of thing with.
Speaker 2:So you can be a paint contractor without actually having a contractor's license?
Speaker 1:Again, don't take me legally, but that's my understanding of what I read on the LR site.
Speaker 2:Sure. Yeah, that's interesting. Right.
Speaker 1:So yeah, there there's actually like three or four things that are like specifically excluded. And I noted painting was one of them. So go look up in the OR. And again, we're talking about South Carolina of course, in this, as, as we've dived down, but, you know, yeah, that, that was one that was excluded.
Speaker 2:Okay. And, you know, we've talked about a lot of different areas here, but one of the last areas we want to talk about is, is economic development and how business licenses can be used and maybe is used in some cases to assist in economic development. And So what have you seen out there, Carl, in your travels around?
Speaker 1:I think there's a couple of interesting things here. First, one of the things we do at Gov Possible is that you want to supply or, you know, and our thought process was, you know, we want to help our municipalities supply value back to the businesses. Right? And, you know, and how can we what are some of the things we can do? Well, one of the things of course is just in general advertising.
Speaker 1:That helps you as the municipality. The more people that are going to these businesses, the more, the more likely they're going to stay in business, right? The more people from out of town are going to these businesses, the more likely they're going to go to other businesses and use facilities within the municipality, increase your tourism dollars and all those kinds of things. Eventually if you have hospitality and accommodation taxes, increase those. Right?
Speaker 1:So, but just in general, doing what you can to let people both in the community and outside the community know, Hey, these businesses are here. And so from our standpoint, starts with a very simple mapping that people can put on their website. As long as the people have paid their business license, they show up on the map. In that map, they can say, let me look at all the lodging in town, or let me look at all the restaurants in town and things like that. So that's kind of the first basic piece.
Speaker 1:There are municipalities within the state who are doing more than that. They do YouTube streaming of the grand openings and make sure they have a council person there to help do the ribbon cutting. They have business spotlights on their website or on their Facebook page on a regular basis, talking about various businesses. Now, you've to figure out how to do that fairly, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But there is certainly opportunity there for you as a municipality to help in general with the advertising and awareness of the businesses that are there.
Speaker 1:What business isn't going to appreciate the mayor or council person coming by and saying, hey, we appreciate you being here. If there's anything you can help with, you know, here's our here's our downtime coordinator or here's our our small business connection. Here's those leave behinds we just talked to. Here's the small business center at the community college. Here's the chamber of commerce number.
Speaker 1:All of those kind of things. So making them feel welcome and helping make other people aware of them, think, are two of the more basic things. It takes some personal effort, but not a huge amount of cost for you to do.
Speaker 2:Good. I would like to say here, Carl mentioned the mapping and business listing, to reassure all of our business owners, South Carolina State law protects your business information, not your name, but your financials. That is absolutely kept confidential Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No. No.
Speaker 2:Under penalty of law if if it's not maintained. When we're talking about helping people see what's out there, it's just simply, these are licensed businesses, not any of
Speaker 1:the Here's details the name, here's the location. The things that we would hope, you know, any business, any business would want. Yes. Right. So, you think you'd want people to know about your business?
Speaker 1:So, that's what we're trying to do there as far as advertising and outreach.
Speaker 2:Yep. So, the last area we wanted to talk about today was how the different departments within a municipality can work together and how Business License can be beneficial and useful to those other departments too. And one thing that Carl just mentioned about the mapping for businesses to be able to see or individuals to be able to see who is in the community, where they're located, etcetera. Departments can do that as well. Can see who is out there and maybe it helps them route their sanitation trucks a certain way, or maybe we need a different type of service in this area, or maybe sewage lines need to be upgraded in this area.
Speaker 2:So so those are some of the ways departments can help each other in those areas. Do you have any other ideas on that, Carl?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think and this varies widely wildly has wildly by municipality. I you know, one of the key ones, I think, are between administration licensing and your public safety group, both both fire and police, which Just had a story, you know, talking with one of the municipalities in the last couple of weeks where the police department referred a peddler to the Business Licensing Group because they didn't know that two years ago peddling was taken away as a separate rate class from Business Licensing. They don't have a permit ordinance on the book yet. So, sure that communication, especially with your Public Safety Departments, because they're the ones who can, back to Mark's point, use that mapping to see, Oh, that business isn't even licensed yet.
Speaker 1:Let me go talk to them about getting licensed and potentially helping with the revenue of the municipality and or its regulations and, getting those kinds of things done. It can be very helpful for everybody, making sure that everybody is paying their fair share, making sure everybody is registered and that they're known. These are things where sharing what's happening in licensing as far as much more around the idea of changes of who's of class changes of things like the peddlers ordinance going away. Those kinds of things can be very important for, you know, your police department to know about, you know, your obviously, your permitting and planning folks to know about changes that are happening within municipality as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, so this is a good, tool that can be used to help different departments work well together and assist each other in their jobs. You know? So, I encourage you to have great interdepartmental connections to help in all these different areas and help everyone do their job more effectively.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So before we close out this portion, just wanted to throw this out there. If you are a municipality regardless of the state and you know of some interesting ways business license has been used in your community, shoot us a message and, let us explore it a little bit further just so we can continue to learn. And, we'll be glad to share that in a few trips.
Speaker 1:We'd love to hear from y'all and learn things about how you're maybe doing things a little bit differently. You can tell us exactly how wrong we were, all those kinds of things. Yes. Feedback's always welcome.
Speaker 2:Be kind, please be kind. Yes.
Speaker 1:Kind but accurate, that's fine.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:So with that, Mark, I think there were a few grants that came up on the radar these two weeks. I'll start with HUD has a continuum of care supplemental, which seems to be open to municipalities, especially though if they partner with, if they have a local homelessness or housing initiative, things like that. So it's a local competition. And April 23 is the date when things are due around. Again, this is something around doing studies and initial pieces around homelessness and housing.
Speaker 2:Yes. And the second one we have here is from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and this is really for urban greening, stormwater, municipal green spaces. So this is a good program that I would encourage you to look into with a deadline of May 14. So you have roughly a month to look at that, but this gives the opportunity to address a lot of different issues that are in our environment within our municipalities, either to address problems or maybe to expand the green spaces in your community. So that's a really nice program that I'd encourage you to look at.
Speaker 2:And again, we'll have the link on the show notes.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And then finally Appalachian Appalachian Regional Commission, they have an area development grant cycle. South Carolina, I think Union, and then the four counties touching, you know, the western parts of North Carolina and Georgia up there, Oconee, Greenville, Spartanburg, I know I'm missing one or two, you know, all part of the Appalachian Region. And then, of course, this then expands into a bunch of Western North Carolina as well as Northern Georgia and some parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, and then of course all the way up through New York State. These are full infrastructure grants, economic development grants.
Speaker 1:So, these are very general, relatively potentially large. If you're in those counties and interested, the the arc.gov site, and we'll of course include the link to the program itself in the show notes, but the arc.gov contact, they encourage you to reach out to your state contact. And for South Carolina, that is Barry Butler, who's apparently based in Columbia. So, if you, if you're looking for something like that, I would certainly reach out to them here. That is supposed to be due towards the end of the month, early May, as far as submitting your initial plan.
Speaker 2:Yes. And as, as everyone on here listening, I'm sure knows infrastructure costs are extremely high. So I encourage you to look at all the different sources you can possibly access to assist with paying for those projects.
Speaker 1:Don't we know it? Well, Mark, I appreciate you, sitting with me and, talking through some of the, parts of Business Licensing, something that's both extremely relevant this time of year and near and dear to my heart.
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us. And as always, I learn learn a lot when I'm having these conversations with you.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Likewise, Have a great one.
Speaker 2:All right. See you next time.
Speaker 1:See you next time. Thanks for everybody for listening. Of course, you know, tell your friends about us, like and subscribe and whatever you're supposed to do on those podcast things. And I will see you next episode. Bye bye.
Speaker 2:Bye.