Fast Times at L&I

Despite the fact that I'm going to be waking up at 5am every day pretty soon, when my alarm went off at 6:51am yesterday morning, it felt awfully early. I dragged myself out of bed and was dragging myself into L&I around 8am. I had to go to L&I to get a business license and appeal my zoning rejection.

Step 1: Get a license to do business in the city of Philadelphia. In order to get a Business Privilege License, first you need to get a city tax number, which is procured in the tax section of L&I. I was treated to the experience of waiting in a seat so that I could wait on a line so I could get a number so I could wait in a seat again until some city employee was able to help me. Wasn't too bad, maybe 30 minutes of waiting, all told. Actually, now that I think about it, that might be a new record for efficiency for my friends at L&I. I should send them some chocolates.

Once my number lit up, I was escorted into the bowels of L&I where I met with a dude that works for the city who entered a bunch of information into a computer and generated a tax number for me.

So next I had to go to get another number and wait in a different area for someone to actually issue me the license. Fifteen minutes and $250 later, I am officially licensed to do business in Philadelphia, and more importantly, the city is ready to start carving taxes out of my hide.

Step 2: Appeal my zoning variance rejection: $200 later, I have six-eight weeks until my hearing. Um, can't they see me next week? Or maybe the weekend after? What the hell, are things so busy they can't squeeze me in? I did learn that for the low low price of 500 bucks I can be guaranteed that my hearing will be in 4-6 weeks. Fuck. So what can I do in the space between now and then? Um, I'm not sure.

So I dropped $450 today on the right to be taxed and the right to (someday) appear before the zoning board to request that they overrule my rejected variance. Which is sort of going to be a foregone conclusion, since I have neighborhood approval. Sigh.

In other news, my financial situation is tenuous and almost all of my startup capital is kind of up in the air at the moment. Good times. Good times indeed.