Business license

[sgreanbeans]

So I had to go over to another city, to get all legal and stuff, like a good boy. As I sat there and waited for the lady. I thougth, I am going to try something. Had my binder, that has years of this stuff in it. When it was time, she asked for my proof of insurance. Just for giggles, I gave her one from 2005, to see if she would see it. Very nice lady, very pleasant and sweet, a grandma. Nope, she quickly looked at the coverage amounts to see if they where enough, per city requirements, took my money and gave me a license. I have never met her before, so it was not like my city, where I am "Norm" from cheers when I walk into city hall. My point: You always get asked, are you licensed, bonded and insured. The answer is always yes, but, this shows that anybody can get a licenses to do this, ya just need money. The city's will stop you, ask to see your paper work. If you don't have a license, they will shut you down on the spot. Is it that they want to make sure they have only pros? Hell no! You could be dumping stuff into the road, the neighbors roof, working within the 10ft on HV, using goats to clean up or have no PPE what so ever and they don't care. They wont shut ya down for any of that, but they will if you are not licensed. They want to see if you have that paper. They want that money and that is the only thing they care about. Burns me up.

My other gripe. I live in a area called the quad cities, we have 4 main, and several little ones in the area. I have to buy a license and bond for every one. Even tho, we are pretty much one medium sized city. I think that it is BS that we have to get one for each one. In cali, we had one for our base of operations, but that was it. As long as we where licensed in one, it was good for the others. Do any of u have to deal with this, or how does it work in your neck of the woods.

 

[imagineero]

sounds like you ought to head back to cali. everything is so reasonable there

 

[yeahbuddy24]

We have one main city 130,000 and 4 small city/towns within 50 mile radius need a bizz license for each. The people can be assholes in the city department in the small towns tho unless you are part of the "group". Plus They always overcharge me at the dump. I dont do any work for the city, although i do lots of prune jobs on street trees for the homeowner who wants a nice job done. Seems like too much paper work and handing out money for fees is only going to get worse.

 

[OLD OAK]

No one checks insurance here or asks anything about it, They want your employer ID # And want to know what your gross sales are so they can charge you tax $. I don't know about anywhere else but here they review my tax return to check for equipment and sales so they make sure they get ALL the Tax money they can. They do mine every year after i file and send me a bill for whatever extra i owe.

 

[jefflovstrom]

I love so-cal.
Jeff

 

[since16]

The city licensing thing makes no sense it should b the same if the city wants to have a license then have one but don't make it different when towns touch each other in the same state. It's just a way to push the little guy and get more money. If a big storm hits u aren't going to take ur tree service to the town 5 miles away if u don't have to cause ur gonna have work and there's no point in getting ur equiptment impounded. Half the time if u look up a city and there tree license you can't find a link and info on their website.

 

[bootboy]

Business licenses here are good for the whole state as far as tree work goes. One and done.

 

[FanOFatherNash]

We were using goats to clean up turns out you need a permit for anything bigger than a pygmy.