Etowah County cracking down on delinquent business licenses

Etowah County business licenses are due for renewal in October (they run through the following September), but with summer in sight a significant chunk of them remain delinquent.

And county officials — who have been pressing scofflaws to pay up since November — have reached the limits of their patience.

Currently, there are about 5,100 business licenses issued annually in Etowah County, according to Chief License Inspector Connie Arnold. As of Tuesday, 655 of those licenses (representing 601 businesses) remained delinquent, a noncompliance rate of close to 13%.

Those folks will receive a letter — the county isn't relying on the mail, employees will begin delivering them in person on Friday — formally notifying them that they are operating their businesses without valid licenses in violation of Alabama law.

Shane Ellison, the county's chief administrative officer, read the contents during Tuesday's County Commission meeting.

The letters will state the specific time frames the businesses are delinquent for and the amount of fees that are owed. (Penalties and interest also apply.) Once the letters are placed in their hands, they will have 10 calendar days to pay up — in full — or their cases will be turned over to Circuit Court.

If the court issues citations, additional court costs will apply to the money owned, plus the business owners will be subject to prosecution by the district attorney's office and a potential six-month jail sentence if they're found guilty.

Arnold stressed that multiple attempts have been made to seek payment from the delinquent businesses. “We'll officially send out citations starting in November.” she said. “Then they get a second notice sent to them, and then we'll do phone calls and site visits. So they've had several contacts from us.”

Commissioner Craig Inzer Jr. thanked Arnold for her work on the situation.

“It's a shame. I get that sometimes people forget,” or might be unclear on the requirements, said Inzer, a business owner himself. But he added that multiple notifications should be sufficient to gain compliance. “It might not be what we like to do,” he said, “but it's what we have to do.”

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Etowah County faces backlog of 655 delinquent business licenses