A little touch o' Hazzard in Collyforneeuh...
Posted on 04/21/2004 10:12:21 AM PDT by chance33_98
One Reason California Earned The Title “Worst Business Climate in America”
How one local government forces businesses that don't do business in their city to to buy business licences.
La Mirada, CA (PRWEB) April 21, 2004 -- It was a tough town in which to do business, a town where even yard sales required city licenses. It was the kind of town that has earned California the title of “Worst Business Climate in America.” We are a couple of maverick Magicians, eager to make our mark on the Southern California Entertainment scene. My name is G. Brady Lenardos, my partner is Leland Edward Stone. We perform under the name of "Brady and Stone Productions." We thought we were immune to the strong-arm tactics of this town, since we had no office in the town, neither did we ever do any business in the town. Boy, were we wrong. And so begins a sordid tale, one of squandered public resources and misplaced official zeal. In the end, there would also be a dead body.
Stone & I had begun the year with an article in the local paper featuring our ‘Psychic Magic Performances.’ That article caught the attention of officials in La Mirada, California, whose Sheriff’s station contacted me at my home in another city. We agreed on a time and date to perform for the Sheriff's Department. On 28 January we showed up for the performance.
Arriving at the station, we were escorted into an interrogation room by three large Sheriff deputies wearing side arms and flak jackets. We were eventually told that there was no gig. Instead, a business license application was shoved across the table at us, and then we each received a misdemeanor citation for conducting business in La Mirada without a license. "Get a licence and the Judge will probably throw this out," said one of the three Deputies guarding us.
Even after we bought the licence the city prosecutor wouldn't let this go. It would take four trips to court before their kind of justice was served. Two different judges laughed at the case, one city prosecutor wouldn’t even give us his card when he told us to cut a deal with his boss. In the end it took the time and effort of three Sheriff’s deputies, two City Prosecutors, two City Code Enforcement Officers and two Judges to extract the grand total in fines of a hundred bucks and convict us of an infraction.
Maybe this excessive use of public assets to nab two magicians who weren’t doing business in their town was worthwhile to their citizens. Hey, next time we make a quarter disappear in La Mirada, we’ll be doing legitimate, legal Magic; but at this point in time we still have no intention of doing business in that town. Then again, maybe the citizens of that town would have preferred that its sheriffs hadn’t been paying quite so much attention to a couple of Outlaw Magicians they set up. You see, on January 28th, 2004 -- the very same day we were stung -- a murder victim was found within their borders. To the best of my knowledge, that murderer is still at large.
This criminal case, #4DW01692, was heard in the Downey Municipal Court, 7500 Imperial Highway, Downey, California on 15 April 2004. The defendants plead guilty to an infraction.
They should have seen that one coming.
"We agreed on a time and date to perform for the Sheriff's Department. On 28 January we showed up for the performance."
So just what does the author consider "doing business"? They agreed to perform and showed up to perform. Is he claiming they did not intend to "do business" in La Mirada, at the Sheriff's Department, no less?
If nothing else, he has managed to make his credibility disappear.
The shakedown appears petty and absurd, but obvious misrepresentation does not convince me of this guy's honesty in his telling of the tale.
There are no guilty men in prison.
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