“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.” Michael Watt
This blog post first appeared in Long Island Business News
Last month the New York Daily News reported that an administrative law judge at the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs claims she was punished for resisting pressure from agency officials to find merchants guilty of violations and impose the maximum fines. The judge, Michelle Mirro, has filed a lawsuit in Brooklyn Federal Court accusing superiors at the city’s DCA of forcing her to change her verdict in favor of the agency, or to raise the fine in many cases.
Mirro cites one case in particular, where the city overruled her and found a gasoline station operator guilty of not displaying his brand’s logo above the black-and-white price sign and socked it with a $20,000 fine even though she had actually found the station not guilty. In its ongoing series about the city’s aggressive practices in fining small business operators, the Daily News also cited a situation where a service station operator was fined $8,000 for posting a black and white sign prohibiting the sale of tobacco products to consumers under 18 instead of one in color, as required by law.
Don’t think it only happens in the five boroughs. One county legislative session I sat through recently included a discussion about adding inspectors to the department of consumer affairs and the inspectors were referred to as “revenue streams.”
Veteran business owners understand that inspections are an important part of the business process and that the consuming public is entitled to the watchdog service they provide. They also understand that inspections and rule enforcement help thin the herd of unscrupulous competition.
Take those in the child care industry, for example. Legitimate operators play by a stringent set of rules and even though these rules drive up the cost of child care, few can argue with the need for them. Appropriate enforcement also helps guard against child care centers that do business in residential homes and charge less for their services because of the lower overhead that comes with not following the rules.
So legitimate business operators understand the need and benefits stemming from the rules being enforced. What has them upset is the new mindset they say inspectors bring to the task at hand. Many who are licensed by the state, county and/or town share various horror stories of aggressive inspections with greater regularity of late.
In years prior, they say, inspectors would point out a violation but then offer an opportunity to rectify the situation. Now the business owners get written up right away and any appeals process is seen as a exercise in futility. And the fines are real head scratchers, not unlike those mentioned in the Daily News pieces. One operator, whose identity and location cannot be revealed for fear of retaliation, shared with me that he got hit with a significant fine because his files were not color coded according to regulations.
Color-coding of files is important, but failure to abide by this rule does not put a consumer in harm’s way, nor does it threaten the environment. Yet the business owner has to deal with the aggravation and, more importantly, fork over the fines. The problem here is that small, independent business owners do not operate with the unlimited funds local governments seem to think they have. (I was participating in a discussion about a local government’s plans to quadruple a specific fee to $500 when one county official turned to me and said, “What’s $500 to one of your guys?”)
The way these business owners see it, the more revenue the local municipalities can squeeze out of them, the less they need from the taxpaying voters, and I can’t argue with them. While the evidence is anecdotal, the reality is what it is and unless local governments reverse this trend it’s just a matter of time before these small businesses are inspected out of business.
Michael Watt is the president of Long Island Inc., a consulting firm that advocates on behalf of small businesses, most notably the 500-plus members of the Long Island Gasoline Retailers Association. Prior to that he served as executive director for the Long Island Builders Institute, the trade association for the Long Island homebuilding industry.
From 2003 to 2007 Mr. Watt served as president of the Long Island Partnership, an umbrella group representing the many economic development organizations across Nassau and Suffolk counties.
Mr. Watt has also worked as the Chief Information Officer for LongIsland.com, a regional search engine serving the Long Island community, and for the Long Island Business News. While with the Business News Mr. Watt helped create the LIBN twice daily business news alert sent via email.
Mr. Watt was also the Director of Communication and Public Relations for Dowling College and Special Projects Director for Inflight Newspapers, Inc. In 1989 Mr. Watt co-founded and edited 516 Magazine, a monthly publication covering Long Island’s entertainment, leisure and recreation industries.
In 2007 the Public Relations Professionals of Long Island presented its award recognizing achievement in Promoting Long Island by a non-Public Relations Professional to Mr. Watt. He has also received top honors from the New York Press Association and the Long Island Press Club for his humor writing.
Michael Watt
631-678-6193
michaelwatt@longislandinc.com
