I'll try to make this and simple and concise as I can without leaving anything pertinent out.
I have a business selling shipping containers. I buy them from a wholesaler and sell them retail. Pretty simple process I've created from A-Z.
This is still a part-time business for me. I'm not yet moving a lot of volume. I had a good storage yard that I am going to have to vacate sometime soon. Essentially I rent space in a storage yard (place for trailers, trucks, boats, etc.). As my business stands right now I'm not big enough or in the financial position to rent out my own yard. If I had more finances I'd rent my own yard and sub-lease trailers and boats and such to supplement. So where I'm at right now I need to rent from someone with yard space of some type.
I thought I had something else lined up, signed the lease, everything (I'm not on the hook for the lease) however once I went to the city to try to get a business license, I talked to a few different folks with the city involved with business licensing and it's kind of a weird scenario that they're telling me it's a no-go.
More or less, they said that there were only 4 reasons permitted by the city that a container can be on the property, and stored inventory not being one of them. This was from the city planner, who unlike many in government actually put some thought and research into delivering the answer he gave me after listening to my scenario in full. Now the thing is there's a grey area and I think I can reason with this individual if there's an angle but I'm not sure how to go about it, hence my being here.
One of the "approved" uses he provided was that it could be used to store inventory inside. The containers ARE the inventory, he didn't' seem to think this applied to my situation based on the code.
There's some other verbage in the city code my landlord came across that said more or less that the containers were allowed on property as long as they were "used for storage" and that they were "placed properly"-I don't know what the proper placement is but I'm awaiting that code to be sent to me. I do plan to store my forklift inside one of the containers, and some other misc items that I use for loading/unloading containers as the come and go.
1. Any reccomendations to try to fight this?
2. Or would I be better off scrapping the idea of putting my business here and just looking for yard space to rent in another city? I've been keeping my eyes open but so far hasn't been successful, this doesn't seem to be the easiest thing to find.
3. ONE OTHER ALTERNATIVE I'm thinking of is that I get a business license for my home office and work off of that. Since I largely work from home and the yard space is just for storage of inventory and I really only go there to load/unload the containers. Thoughts?
I have a business selling shipping containers. I buy them from a wholesaler and sell them retail. Pretty simple process I've created from A-Z.
This is still a part-time business for me. I'm not yet moving a lot of volume. I had a good storage yard that I am going to have to vacate sometime soon. Essentially I rent space in a storage yard (place for trailers, trucks, boats, etc.). As my business stands right now I'm not big enough or in the financial position to rent out my own yard. If I had more finances I'd rent my own yard and sub-lease trailers and boats and such to supplement. So where I'm at right now I need to rent from someone with yard space of some type.
I thought I had something else lined up, signed the lease, everything (I'm not on the hook for the lease) however once I went to the city to try to get a business license, I talked to a few different folks with the city involved with business licensing and it's kind of a weird scenario that they're telling me it's a no-go.
More or less, they said that there were only 4 reasons permitted by the city that a container can be on the property, and stored inventory not being one of them. This was from the city planner, who unlike many in government actually put some thought and research into delivering the answer he gave me after listening to my scenario in full. Now the thing is there's a grey area and I think I can reason with this individual if there's an angle but I'm not sure how to go about it, hence my being here.
One of the "approved" uses he provided was that it could be used to store inventory inside. The containers ARE the inventory, he didn't' seem to think this applied to my situation based on the code.
There's some other verbage in the city code my landlord came across that said more or less that the containers were allowed on property as long as they were "used for storage" and that they were "placed properly"-I don't know what the proper placement is but I'm awaiting that code to be sent to me. I do plan to store my forklift inside one of the containers, and some other misc items that I use for loading/unloading containers as the come and go.
1. Any reccomendations to try to fight this?
2. Or would I be better off scrapping the idea of putting my business here and just looking for yard space to rent in another city? I've been keeping my eyes open but so far hasn't been successful, this doesn't seem to be the easiest thing to find.
3. ONE OTHER ALTERNATIVE I'm thinking of is that I get a business license for my home office and work off of that. Since I largely work from home and the yard space is just for storage of inventory and I really only go there to load/unload the containers. Thoughts?
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