Monday, Feb. 08, 2010

Coin shop owner makes the city count pennies to protest fees

Troy Thoreson decides to pay business license fee in full

The business license fees for Thoreson's Numismatics were paid Friday, but it was done under protest.

Flanked by about 12 chamber of commerce members, his employees, customers and concerned citizens, Troy Thoreson packed 80,000 pennies on to carts and wheeled them from his shop to City Hall.

He also carried 363 dollar bills, bringing the total payment to an even $1,163. The city told Thoreson he had to pay that amount or risk a 20 percent per month penalty.

"This is what happens when you bill a coin shop like it's a pawn shop," Thoreson said as he defiantly stood in front of the boxes of pennies he stacked on the finance department's front counter.

Thoreson paid Los Baños a $78 business license fee in November. Weeks later he received a second bill of $1,163 to cover an administrative fee. The fee is listed by the city as being for pawnbrokers. Thoreson's business, however, is primarily a coin dealership.

City officials have told Thoreson that the intent of the fee was to include secondhand dealers. Although Thoreson has a secondhand dealer's license, he doesn't believe he should be treated like a pawn shop.

His supporters agree.

"What bothers me is the word 'intent.' If you say this is the intent of the law you can use that word for anything," said Dennis Fauchier, one of Thoreson's customers who went to City Hall in a display of solidarity.

Members of the Chamber of Commerce also made the trip to City Hall.

"We are business people and we're here to support our fellow business man," said Ernest Roque of Efr Insurance Agency.

Roque said he wants to help correct an injustice. He said if the city is allowed to charge Thoreson Numismatics as a business it is not, eventually the same will be done to other businesses in town.

Chamber of Commerce President Geneva Brett was at City Hall paying the license fee for her business. She said she supports Thoreson exercising his right to engage in peaceful protest.

Brett said she disagrees with the city's decision to charge Thoreson the fee because the California Business and Professions code specifically says coin dealers are not secondhand dealers. She also believes the fees for real estate agents, the profession she works in, are too high.

As city staff counted the boxes of pennies, Thoreson made an impromptu speech to his supporters outlining his issues with the city's fee.

The group carried Thoreson away from City Hall on one of the empty carts he had used to transport the pennies.

Thoreson said he was satisfied with the way he handled his dispute with the city.

"It was paid in protest," he said. "(But) it was worth not having to pay 20 percent a month."

Enterprise reporter Corey Pride can be reached by phone at 388-6563 or by e-mail at cpride@losbanosenterprise.com