The Collinsville, Illinois Business License Ordinance

A few years back, I was con­fronted by a bureau­crat at City Hall regard­ing the recently-passed Collinsville Busi­ness License Ordi­nance. This bureau­crat, Dawn Cor­dle, instructed me to fill out a busi­ness license appli­ca­tion because my hav­ing a num­ber of com­put­ers and a fax machine made me a “busi­ness”. I pro­ceeded to chal­lenge her igno­rance and demand to see the ordi­nance. My request was denied with­out my first sub­mit­ting a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act request. She refused to show me the “law” which I am sup­posed to obey. Not a smart thing to do.

I sub­se­quently vis­ited the then-Mayor, Stan Scha­ef­fer, as well as con­tact­ing cor­po­rate coun­sel, Steve Gia­co­letto about this ordi­nance. I recorded the con­ver­sa­tion with Scha­ef­fer wherein he admit­ted to not know­ing the legal par­tic­u­lars of the ordi­nance, yet he voted for it and signed it into “law”. Gia­co­letto con­firmed dur­ing our phone con­ver­sa­tion that the ordi­nance, even though passed into law by the coun­cil, is not enforce­able upon me or any other “non-legal entity”, mean­ing peo­ple who are not rep­re­sent­ing a cor­po­rate entity.

Sub­se­quent to those con­ver­sa­tions, I appeared at a City Coun­cil meet­ing after over 2 years hav­ing passed since I refused to pro­cure a busi­ness license. Dur­ing that meet­ing, I demanded an inter­pre­ta­tion on the applic­a­bil­ity of the ordi­nance and if I were so oblig­ated, then the City should arrest, pros­e­cute, and fine me to the tune of over $233,000. A record­ing of the meet­ing is here:

City Coun­cil Meet­ing Feb. 27, 2006

The Let­ter to the Collinsville Her­ald Where I Dis­cuss the Meet­ing of Feb. 27, 2006

You can find the Collinsville Ordi­nances here.

I wrote a let­ter to the Edi­tor of the Collinsville Her­ald regard­ing the meet­ing encour­ag­ing peo­ple to watch the recorded ver­sion. My let­ter was as follows:

It began in March, 2004 with a let­ter from the City of Collinsville insin­u­at­ing that I was required to have a busi­ness license to work out of my home. After exhaus­tive research, a pri­vate meet­ing with Mayor Scha­ef­fer, a can­did phone con­ver­sa­tion with Cor­po­rate Coun­sel, Steve Gia­co­letto,  I deter­mined and declared that the City did not have the author­ity to pass and enforce such an ordi­nance, specif­i­cally as it applies to peo­ple work­ing out of their homes. To-date, I have not pro­cured said license.

Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Direc­tor, Paul Mann reminded peo­ple to renew their busi­ness licenses or to pro­cure a license if they are con­duct­ing “busi­ness” within the City. The arti­cle did not men­tion who was law­fully required to obtain a license. I know of peo­ple who work out of their homes who have applied for a busi­ness license, whereas I have not. The dif­fer­ence is, I have read the ordi­nance, and the state statutes, and have deter­mined that it did not apply to me.

I attempted to clar­ify the issue. I was allowed a pri­vate audi­ence with Mayor Scha­ef­fer. Mayor Scha­ef­fer assured me that he would not hold me account­able to the license ordi­nance, as I was not con­sid­ered a “busi­ness”, despite what the City pre­vi­ously stated. I posed sev­eral legal ques­tions to the Mayor, where he then referred me to Cor­po­rate Coun­cil, Steve Gia­co­letto, whom I called. Mr. Gio­co­letto and I dis­cussed this issue in detail. Dur­ing that con­ver­sa­tion, he told me that the City would not pros­e­cute me for non­com­pli­ance with the ordi­nance, as he also agreed that what I did while work­ing out of my home was not a “busi­ness activity”.

Mr. Gia­co­letto and Mayor Scha­ef­fer were very forth­com­ing with their infor­ma­tion. I took excep­tion to the ordi­nance; they met or spoke with me, and affirmed that I was not sub­ject to the ordi­nance. The ques­tion is what makes me dif­fer­ent from the rest of the workers-from-home? This can be answered by tun­ing in to Chan­nel 10 tonight at 8:30pm or Thurs­day morn­ing 12:30 pm and watch­ing the City Coun­cil meet­ing from last Mon­day, where I again asked the City for clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the appli­ca­tion of this ordi­nance. Sur­pris­ingly enough, both Mr. Gia­co­letto and Mayor Scha­ef­fer both affirmed, again, how this ordi­nance applies to workers-from-home.

What is curi­ous is that the ordi­nance does not men­tion any­thing about home-based busi­nesses. Why then, am I excluded from those hav­ing to com­ply? If it is not because I work from home, then is it the nature of my busi­ness? This doesn’t appear to be the case either. The ordi­nance pre­sumes that any­one who is not already licensed by the State for their occu­pa­tion is con­scripted by the City to abide by their law. There is some­thing more fun­da­men­tal and pro­found here as to why I am not con­sid­ered a busi­ness. If it is not the nature of my busi­ness or the fact that I work from home, could it be that the law in gen­eral is inap­plic­a­ble? This is a ques­tion you all need to con­sider and pur­sue. I would sug­gest con­tact­ing your Coun­cilper­son and ask­ing them about any duty to com­ply in light of the state­ments made at the Coun­cil meeting.

When you view the City Coun­cil meet­ing on Chan­nel 10, you will see and hear both the Mayor and Mr. Gio­co­letto affirm that I am exempt. Although very telling, the state­ment is some­what qual­i­fied in that it falls just short of total dis­clo­sure by not address­ing the issue at-large. If I am exempt, why aren’t the rest of you?

Mark McCoy, Collinsville

On the City’s web­site, there is mis­lead­ing infor­ma­tion about who needs a busi­ness license, par­tic­u­larly, those who run a busi­ness from their “res­i­dence”. It states in-part, “Home Occu­pa­tions (busi­nesses that are run from your pri­mary res­i­dence) are sub­ject to addi­tional restric­tions and require­ments.” I have to ask, exactly who decides if what you do out of your home is a “busi­ness”? If you ask the City Clerk, as I did, you will find they are none the more versed in inter­pret­ing legalese than any­one, and prob­a­bly less-so because their minds are nar­rower than the space between a fat lady’s thighs. As I was told, because I own com­put­ers and a fax machine I was a “busi­ness”. You will NEVER have a City bureau­crat turn away your $25 appli­ca­tion fee because you mis­tak­enly claimed to be a busi­ness. Whether you believe it or not, you have a right to work for a liv­ing and engage in activ­i­ties which pose no threat to the com­mu­nity or indi­vid­u­als, even if done in your home. It is insane to think you need per­mis­sion from any­one to pro­vide for your own needs or pleasure.

My expe­ri­ence with City Hall bureau­crats and a mis­ap­plied busi­ness license ordinance

March 24, 2004

Nadia Brahler

City of Collinsville

123 South Cen­ter Street

Collinsville, IL 62234

Re: Appli­ca­tion for City Busi­ness License

Ms. Brahler,

Today I received an Appli­ca­tion for a City Busi­ness License from the City of Collinsville.  I am address­ing this specif­i­cally to you because I under­stand that these licenses are under your purview.  The appli­ca­tion I received was not accom­pa­nied by any let­ter, notice, cor­re­spond­ing ordi­nance as to its applic­a­bil­ity, or any­thing else for that mat­ter, and absent any offi­cial city let­ter­head or duly autho­rized sig­na­ture from a cor­po­rate author­ity rep­re­sen­ta­tive.  There­fore, I am enclos­ing said appli­ca­tion and return­ing it to you so it not be wasted at a cost to the taxpayers.

I am dis­mayed as to why the city would capri­ciously send an unso­licited appli­ca­tion to my address.  Is it com­mon prac­tice of the city to send busi­ness appli­ca­tions to all res­i­dents?  You also erred in address­ing the enve­lope to “Mark McCoy (Inter­net Web Design)”.  I do not, nor have I ever, gone by the des­ig­na­tion of “Inter­net Web Design”, nor do I have a busi­ness incor­po­rated under the name “Inter­net Web Design”, nor iden­tify myself as doing busi­ness as “Inter­net Web Design”.  The address­ing of the let­ter, if to be viewed in the light of an offi­cial com­mu­niqué from the munic­i­pal­i­ties cor­po­rate author­i­ties, lacks speci­ficity as to whom the intended recip­i­ent of the let­ter is.  I there­fore, as a mat­ter of cour­tesy, am respond­ing for the non-entity of “Mark McCoy (Inter­net Web Design) since I am the clos­est rep­re­sen­ta­tion of that entity at this address.

To my rec­ol­lec­tion, I did visit your office on March 23, 2004 and inquire as to the applic­a­bil­ity of the city’s busi­ness license in cer­tain cir­cum­stances.  I also asked to be pro­vided with a copy of the ordi­nance which empow­ers the city with the abil­ity to not only license busi­nesses, but to also com­pel them to reg­is­ter with the city.  I was also refused access to, for view­ing, the Munic­i­pal Code and City Char­ter, both of which, in con­junc­tion with law­fully del­e­gated pow­ers from the state leg­is­la­ture, lais the foun­da­tion for all pow­ers wielded by the munic­i­pal­ity.  I have yet to find any statute or leg­is­la­tion which sup­ports the city’s pre­sump­tion to license or reg­is­ter all busi­nesses.  Con­cor­dantly, your office refused to pro­vide, either for view­ing or copy­ing, the ordi­nance at issue thus neces­si­tat­ing the sub­mis­sion of a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act request to view that ordinance.

Absent any prima facie evi­dence of the exis­tence of such an ordi­nance pur­suant to 65 ILCS 5/1–2-5 and 65 ILCS 5/1–2-6, which was not pro­duced upon my request, I can not be com­pelled to com­ply with your inter­pre­ta­tion of the ordinance’s applic­a­bil­ity in my cir­cum­stance.  I can only be com­pelled to com­ply with law­ful ordi­nances that I myself have read.  No offense but, I pre­fer not to sub­ject myself to the juris­dic­tion of the city pred­i­cated upon heresy.  As in the appli­ca­tion of Dillon’s Rule, a canon of strict con­struc­tion for munic­i­pal­i­ties when attempt­ing to val­i­date ordi­nances, the les­son is that any rea­son­able doubt as to the power or author­ity of a munic­i­pal­ity is to be resolved against it.  Your office failed to pro­vide me with the requested statu­tory author­ity for this ordi­nance on which I base my rea­son­able doubt as to its lawfulness.

Dur­ing our chat you pro­ceeded to ask me some prob­ing ques­tions of such a nature so as to lend per­cep­tion to the con­struct of a busi­ness enter­prise.  Merely own­ing com­put­ers, fax machines or other business-like para­pher­na­lia does not con­sti­tute a busi­ness, the legal def­i­n­i­tion which is still in dis­pute absent pro­duc­tion of the applic­a­ble ordi­nance and sup­port­ing state statutes.  If your erro­neous prof­fer of a busi­ness license is pred­i­cated upon the pos­ses­sion of cer­tain per­sonal prop­erty then you may want to sub­mit a num­ber of license appli­ca­tions so as to pro­vide for my mechanic’s busi­ness which is evi­denced by the pos­ses­sion of var­i­ous wrenches and tools; my clean­ing busi­ness which is evi­denced by mops, brooms and rags; and my bak­ery which is evi­denced by my pos­ses­sion of a stove and var­i­ous ingre­di­ents with which to make delec­table pastries.

I will respect­fully ask you to save the enclosed license for some­one to whom it law­fully applies or who unwit­tingly wishes to con­tro­vert their right to make a liv­ing.  In the mean-time I will refrain from fur­ther com­ment or dis­cus­sion on the mat­ter until I have had time to review the ordi­nance in ques­tion in fur­ther detail.

Thank you for your time.

Respect­fully,

Mark McCoy

Cc:

Mayor Stan Scha­ef­fer via post and email

Coun­cil­man Fred Dal­ton via post

Coun­cil­man Rick Rehg via post and email

Coun­cil­woman Joy Springer via post

Coun­cil­man Jim Pul­ley via post and email

City Man­ager Henry Sinda via post and email

Follow-up Arti­cle to Collinsville Herald

Lis­ten here to a record­ing between myself and Mayor Stan Scha­ef­fer over the Busi­ness License Ordi­nance. Mr. Scha­ef­fer has since expired.

Blast from the Past: Her­ald Op-Ed where they pro­mote the ordi­nance back in 2006 and Nancy Moss  and John Miller are quoted as being against it.