Starting a new business is, among other things, an exercise in discovering exactly which licenses, permits and permissions one needs to obtain. My local municipality requires such a license. The application consists of a one-page form and payment of fifty dollars. It seemed simple enough.
The municipality has a decent Web site. Some might argue that the layout is hard to navigate but it doesn’t bother me. In short order I found several links to the required form. The trouble – you guessed it – none of the links worked! I played good citizen. I compiled a list which included a few other dead-ends I discovered in my quest and submitted a report. The next day my inbox held a reply. But what do you suppose I found when I returned to the site? The questionable links had simply been removed!
Following a couple of days of no progress I decided to visit the Municipal Complex in person. Just before firing up the motorcycle I checked the site for the proper form name and… what’s this? A restored link and an available form!
I pulled the downloaded PDF into an editor and went to work. Some questions struck me as odd but what the heck. I printed the result, cut a check, stuffed the envelope and sent it on its way.
In a couple of days I had voice mail from the town. We actually played phone tag for a couple more days. While playing I even tried to stop by the office twice to no avail. This was dragging on too long! But finally we made contact. Uh oh, the news wasn’t good. It looked for a moment like my application would not be approved! (Er, no mention of why my check was cleared several days previous.) Some polite conversation cleared up the issues and approval became certain. We ended with an upbeat discussion of technology and an introduction to the IT staff. Close call.
Fast forward several weeks. My license had arrived! What a disappointment. I mean, I print way better quality draft material from my inkjet. Half a colored sheet of crap-quality plain paper, n-th generation photocopy with a couple of fields inked in, they couldn’t even cut the bottom of the thing parallel to the top. To call it sloppy would be a huge compliment.
Oh well, it had a number and an official seal. And I guess that’s all that matters.
Here in the People’s Republik of New Jersey, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a town that wasn’t fubar! I’m glad I was able to get my permit, though, and I feel pretty confident that as long as I keep the fees paid it’ll be renewed.
So, um, how did you get your room then? Did Patel Krishna Sri eventually relent? Or did you sleep in your car?
Your town is fubar. E-mail regarding broken links, sent to webmaster@any.town.usa.com (yeah, they haven’t heard of .gov, and the U.S. Army says they bought .com because it’s the most popular!) is supposed to bounce. Either the mailbox is full, or, for a proper governmental function, doesn’t exist.
Yeah, I got my real birth certificate a couple of years ago from city hall in the state capital. Another of those SloppyCopy’s, after I found that my heretofore acceptable “Notice of Registration of Live Birth” was only a courtesy card. This, to acquire my U.S. passport and travel to NZ, where I got along with a photocopy of the identification page, as NZ Immigration had my passport while processing an extended stay permit. Weird feeling–being 9,000 miles from “home” and having that government in possession of your passport! I came back. Gee, I can do anything in NZ with a photocopy of only part of my U.S. passport, but in the U.S., I can’t even the real McCoy to rent a motel room. (Patel Krishna Sri said I need a valid driver’s license, and accept no substitutes).
Bah.
Superb summary on Business Licensing in My Town. I love this point of view.