Establish a Department of Business Licensing and Consumer Protection

While the Baltimore City Code includes Article 2, Consumer Protections, and Article 15, Licensing and Regulation, which contain within them a combined 41 Subtitles, Baltimore has no professionalized staffing for business licensing or consumer protections, and no authority to take direct civil or environmental enforcement actions against entities operating either without required licensure or without adhering to the terms of licensure.

 

Council Bill 23-0347 - Department of Business Licensing and Consumer Protection - establishes a City Department dedicated to overseeing business licensing and consumer protections, including administering licensing, receiving and investigating complaints of abusive practices and violations of relevant state and local laws, establishing enforcement powers, researching and reporting on best practices, and other relevant duties.

 

In the absence of dedicated professional resources, various subtitles within Articles 2 and 15 of the City Code attempt to invent and reinvent a variety of inefficient and ineffective ways of overseeing specific types of businesses. These various methods are nearly impossible to keep track of, various boards rarely operating as intended or required by law. Professionalizing these functions will not only yield better outcomes, but require less staffing to do so, allowing the City to further expand its oversight to businesses like used tire shops and scrap tire haulers that are not properly licensed to prevent illegal dumping of tires, that plagues alleys and parks in communities all across the City.

 

Tighten Controls on Trespass Towing

Plenty of people have their vehicle towed by a trespass tower every day, most of whom have never heard the phrase “trespass towing”or know what it means. Google “predatory towing” and what you’ll find is descriptions of trespass towers at work. In some contexts it’s referred to as “non-consensual” towing, a phrase that in and of itself should let you know it’s problematic.

 

Trespass towing is the business of private towing companies towing vehicles from private property, typically from parking lots, like at a shopping plaza, apartment complex, fast food restaurant or other business, and then charging the vehicle owners to get them back. Trespass towers are allowed to charge for three things when releasing a vehicle back to its owner: towing, daily storage, and if a vehicle is not picked up within a certain time, their cost to send the owner a notice via certified mail. They’re also allowed to charge a “drop fee”, to release your vehicle if you approach them before they drive away with it. And they’re one of the only forms of business for which laws exist to authorize cash-only operations.

 

The State of Maryland provides a limited framework of regulation for trespass towing, authorizing the City to go further, which the City fails to do effectively. The City’s Trespass Towing law must be strengthened, to:

 

• Codify a clear maximum towing fee

• Reduce the allowable “drop” fee

• Constrain conditions under which a “drop” fee is allowed

• Require acceptance of credit card payment

• Do away with the Trespass Towing Board, leaving oversight to a professionalized City agency for Business Licensing and Consumer Protection

• Prohibit and fine for towing from unlicensed and non-compliant commercial parking facilities

• Improve record-keeping requirements

• Prohibit "patrol" towing

 

Fossil Fuels and Environmental Changes

We have a long way to go on fossil fuels and the environment. Many years into the fight to save our planet, much of the work in this area continues to be of the “low and slow” variety, setting weak goals for a far-off future, without having to face the challenge of any immediate change, and embracing changes that seem good on the surface, but simply trade one set of hazards for another.

 

Councilman Dorsey has been a leader in opening dialogue on needed changes big, small, challenging, and more challenging. To preserve our future as a city, a society, and a planet, and to improve our quality of life along the way, many changes are needed and possible through local governance but often overlooked and inconvenient to confront. Here are A few that Councilman Dorsey has sought to broach:

• Gas stations are fossil fuel infrastructure and bad land use. They should be banned.

• Gas powered leaf blowers are a noise and air pollutant. They should be banned.

• An unchecked deer population and invasive plants threaten the future of our forests and public resources, including source water for drinking. The deer population must be culled and more must be done to remove invasive plants.

• Inefficient land use not only costs the public more to sustain, but creates a much greater carbon footprint along the way. Land use policy needs to reflect the realities of sustainability.

• Every October and November Baltimore City DPW drives diesel equipment up and down the City’s streets, burning fossil fuels to collect bags of leaves, to take them to be incinerated. This needs to stop.