Smaller business vendors in Yelm may now receive a break in business license fees if they meet the required qualifications going forward.
Yelm City Council opted to give smaller businesses in town more opportunities after voting to support a new special event vendor license, as well as an exemption to allow youth organizations or youth-run businesses to sell their products.
Sarah Kidd, Business and Operations Tax analyst for the City of Yelm, said she knows applying for a vendor license through the state Department of Revenue can be frustrating, especially for businesses that are small or earning limited revenue.
“We’ve been seeing an increase in vendor events at parks and around the area. Currently, our municipal code does not allow us to have unlicensed vendors in the park. They have to get a state license, as well as a Yelm business license,” Kidd said. “This would give us an option for us to be able to offer these people another way to be a vendor at an event in the city. There would be certain conditions, though.”
In order to qualify for the special event vendor license, Kidd said businesses would have to earn less than $2,000 gross revenue or under $12,000 in the state of Washington.
“If they were over one of those two thresholds, they’d still have to go through the regular business licensing process. We propose that we’d have two different fees, one for just a weekend to cover them Friday through Sunday, and that’d be $25,” Kidd said. “Fifty dollars would give them a pass for the months of May through October, so this would be great for folks coming to the farmer’s market and for routine vendors coming to the city.”
Kidd said applications can be filled out online, or applicants can go to City Hall to use the kiosk and be walked through the process.
“This option is going to let people operate at our events within code, without violating the code, and save them time and money. For example, if they do have a Department of Revenue license, it can be anywhere from $95 and up,” Kidd said. “This provides an option that isn’t so expensive, especially for those who are only doing $200 worth of sales in a weekend.”
She said this change aligns with what the state requires, while giving an additional option for smaller businesses.
Another change was to add an exemption into code for youth organizations, including youth-run businesses.
“We currently don’t have any exemptions for (organizations) like Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts. There’s no exemption or code that allows them to operate without a business license,” Kidd said. “We want to support youth and youth-run businesses, and this would allow those folks to not have business licenses or pay the taxes for Girl Scout cookies or Boy Scout popcorn.”
Councilor Tracey Wood asked Kidd how the state might feel about allowing small vendors to apply for a special event vendor license.
“The state license is currently required for anything over $12,000 or if the city requires it,” Kidd said. “By adding this to our code, we’re not cutting out the state.”
Councilor Joshua Crossman asked Kidd if the youth businesses earn over $12,000 if they would need to obtain a business license.
“The youth businesses would be an exemption to our requirement to have a license,” Kidd said. “If they were going to go over that $12,000, that’s Washington state’s mandate, so at that point they would be required to get a business license through Washington state because the state does not have an exemption for minors.”
The second change to the municipal code was to repeal section 5.12, which states “It is unlawful for any person to conduct, manage or operate a cabaret within the corporate limits of the city, and no person shall conduct, manage or operate such a cabaret within the corporate limits of the city, unless such person has a valid and subsisting license from the city so to do obtained in the manner herein provided.”
“This section is outdated and is not easily enforced or often used,” Kidd said. “We currently don’t have anyone licensed to run a cabaret. We believe as a city there are better-suited options to be available to be able to enforce events such as that.”
The next change was to code 5.06.078 and was primarily just a language change coming down through the state of Washington regarding the definition of a newspaper.
“They added a new timeframe, as well as amended the definition of a newspaper per the RCW’s. It’s just bringing in more of a digital standpoint that wasn’t there when they originally wrote the code,” Kidd said. “We don’t expect it to affect us in any way in what we do or how we collected things before, but it is a mandatory change coming down from the state of Washington.”
Changes to code 5.04.040 updated language to support online filing, according to Kidd. She said the City would previously mail out tax-return forms for people to fill out.
“We have now moved to an online form,” Kidd said. “We want to make sure everyone is using that online form. It saves time. It saves money.”
She said filing can be done online, or folks can come into the City Hall lobby if they don’t have a computer.
