TEXARKANA -- A proposal to establish a citywide business license is off the table in Texarkana because of opposition voiced by business owners Thursday during a public meeting at City Hall.
"I have heard them loud and clear," City Manager Kenny Haskin said about an hour after the hearing. "Based on the public response, I have decided not to pursue the issue at this time."
In the often heated, nearly two-hour meeting, business owners criticized Haskin's plan to make every city business have a license -- and pay an accompanying fee -- that would oblige them to prevent nuisances such as loitering on their property.
The idea was to create a mechanism for holding business owners accountable for allowing unruly behavior on their premises that could scare away potential customers and harm the local economy. Under the plan, business owners could be charged in district court for failing to prevent such behavior.
But business owners asserted that doing so should not entail forcing them to pay a fee to finance the scheme, which some referred to as "extortion."
Haskin made an impassioned pitch to a standing-room-only crowd but was met with objections and jeers. No audience member spoke in favor of the proposal.
Law enforcement agencies are stretched to their limits and need help from the business community, Haskin argued. The current city nuisance ordinance does not have the "teeth" to give police the leverage they need to address the matter, he said. He added that public safety and a healthy business environment are at risk, and addressing the problem will take money.
"We need to clean this city up," Haskin said.
Audience members countered that they pay enough taxes and government fees already, and they should not have to pay to remedy problems they neither have nor cause. Any solution to the nuisance issue should start with police enforcing existing law at the businesses causing trouble, they said.
"All business owners, everybody raise your hand that's having a loitering problem," said Ben Brewer, owner of Southtown Liquor.
No one raised a hand, and the crowd applauded Brewer's point.
Sheila Osborne Wagnon also drew applause when she pointed out that city and state nuisance abatement laws are already on the books.
"The real flaw in all of this is it's putting the onus on us business owners for what happens on our property," she said. "How the heck can I help it if somebody walks across my parking lot and commits a crime? And so what they're essentially saying is it puts more teeth in this because now they can come after me instead of the guy who committed the crime."
Haskin refused to name any of the businesses that he says regularly act as "hosts" of disruptive behavior and criminal activity, but some audience members mentioned a convenience store on North State Line Avenue as an obvious choice.
In recent years the store has been the site of killings and other crimes, including a large fight in July that resulted in 10 arrest warrants. The fight was captured in a video spread on the Internet.
The city Board of Directors will continue to pursue ways to address the problem, Haskin said.
"We're going to take a look at it and find out exactly if we can do something that doesn't require the business community to feel as though they're shouldering a burden here," he said.
State Desk on 08/27/2017