Gainesville Revokes Local Business License

I had written about Silver Stars shortly after they had opened, and today I report on another momentous event for Gainesville and its small business community.  Silver Stars has been shut down indefinitely for failure to obtain a proper business permit.  Funny thing is, they were given a permit to do business originally.  After these several months, the City Council’s office has finally over-ruled the original permit granted.

I had originally applauded the city’s apparent progressive attitude towards new business ventures in the likes of adult novelties, though now I see this was a mistake.  Silver Stars seemed to be doing well in their inauguration into the Gainesville business community.  I know they had many customers, friends, and partners throughout the city.  Their website reports that they are still able (and encouraging people) to process online orders.  There is some glimmer of hope, I suppose, that they may be able to work out a business license through some loophole.  Should that happen, they’ll be back in business until the Council finds some other way to shut them down.

Incidentally, I’m looking through the City Ordinances trying to find the specific violation, but have been unable to do so.  If anyone can point me to the specific code, I’d appreciate it.

5 comments

  1. Here’s something:

    It’s possible something in section 6-10-3 could be the offending subject matter (Ord. No. 92-48, 11-3-92; Ord. No. 96-72, §§ 3–6, 1-7-97). It’s also possible there could be issues in the “Location” section of that chapter, but there’s also an “Appeal” process outlined therein.

    Sec. 6-10-20. Appeal procedure.

    The permittee shall, within ten (10) days after he has been notified of an adverse determination, submit a notice of appeal to the city clerk.
    The notice of appeal shall be addressed to the council and shall specify the subject matter of the appeal, the date of any original and amended application or requests, the date of the adverse decision (or receipt of notice thereof), the basis of the appeal, the action requested of the council and the name and address of the applicant.
    The clerk shall place the appeal on the agenda of the next regular council meeting occurring not less than five (5) nor more than thirty (30) days after receipt of the application for council action. (Ord. No. 92-48, 11-3-92)

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  2. Those bastards! I had hoped that the city was too progressive for this kind of nonsence. I suppose I may as well just give up my dream of starting my Build-A-Bong Workshop empire here in poultry city.

    I hope that the Silver Stars crew can find a way to get back to the brick and mortar business soon.

    Again I say, Those Bastards!

    Reply

  3. Hey guys,
    This is Matt, husband of the owner of Silver Stars.

    Thanks for the words of encouragement, support and research. We’re looking into what we can do now.

    To give you a little more info, the Chief Marshall said that we didn’t carry enough videos to be a ‘Video Store’, so they were citing us as an ‘adult bookstore’ even though books only constitute a very small fraction of our business. Her argument was that the provision uses the term ‘merchandise’ and we do carry merchandise, so they could consider us a book store. Absolutely unfair, but we’re evaluating our next steps. I’ll keep you posted.

    Thanks,
    -Matt

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  4. I could see a problem if they were grabbing children and other people off the streets and forcing them to come into the store and buy adult videos or toys. Perhaps if they had a display window with giant tallywhackers vibrating vigorously….short of that, I don’t see the problem.

    Reply

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