Charges Dropped in Car Repair Licensing Case : Courts: Shop owner should not be penalized for lacking a permit, a judge rules, because the city had improperly denied her one.

A Santa Monica judge has dismissed criminal charges against an auto repair shop owner accused of operating without a business license after the city admitted it had improperly denied her the license in the first place.

The decision by Municipal Judge David Finkel ended a lengthy battle over whether shop owner Regina Barrett should be pressured into pleading no contest to a charge she said arose from foul-ups at City Hall.

“The city made a mistake,” Barrett’s attorney, Christopher M. Harding, told the judge. “What we can’t fathom is why the city attorney feels . . . this is the appropriate case to pursue a criminal prosecution.”

In written opposition to the effort to throw out the charges, Deputy City Atty. David F. Borrino described Barrett as a procrastinating scofflaw who does not merit special treatment.

“It was the defendant’s neglectful--even criminal--course of conduct which led to the filing of this case,” Borrino wrote.

Barrett’s saga began in early 1991 when she signed a lease to open Broadway Auto Services on a site where there had been an auto repair shop for 50 years. Saying that she got bad advice from the city, Barrett did not file for a license right away, though she did sporadic repair work at the site.

Later, when the shop was fully open, a legal clinic hired by Barrett dropped the ball on the license issue. Finally, in February, 1992, Barrett filed for a license herself. She was told that she had to go through a more complicated, costly process to obtain a conditional-use permit because six months had lapsed since the old auto repair shop closed. (The city uses this six-month rule to regulate or discourage certain businesses.)

In Barrett’s case, however, she had been operating part time during those six months. Upon proving that, the city reversed its position and granted her a business license earlier this year.

But the city attorney’s office filed a criminal charge against Barrett for not having a license during the period between the time she applied for one and when it was granted.

Barrett balked at pleading no contest to a petty--but criminal nonetheless--charge and paying a fine of under $100, which the city attorney had demanded in lieu of a jury trial.

The attorney for the city argued that Barrett’s tardiness and procrastination in obtaining a license and dealing with the brouhaha that followed should be taken into account. There was evidence that she committed 300 misdemeanors for the days she operated without a business license, Borrino said.

But Finkel decided that Barrett’s actions in 1991 were irrelevant to a charge based on a specific day in 1993. He said the city attorney was trying to punish her this year for improperly filling out a form last year. If she had filled out the form correctly by acknowledging that she had done part-time work at the new repair shop during the first six months of her lease, Barrett would have gotten the license automatically.