Santa Monica’s Dispute With Auto Repair Shop

Both of the articles concerning Regina Barrett (Times, Oct. 24 and 28) have been filled with disturbing inaccuracies and omissions.

By her own statements, Ms. Barrett operated an auto repair business in Santa Monica since at least early 1991. Yet it wasn’t until 1992 that she applied for her first business license.

Due to zoning changes over the years and given the location of her business, Ms. Barrett needed a special permit, a Conditional Use Permit, in order to get that business license. However, she could avoid the CUP requirement altogether and a good deal of expense too if she stated that she was just continuing an auto repair activity that had not ceased operation for more than six months.

However, for reasons known only to herself, Ms. Barrett did not say the truth. Instead, when asked by city licensing staff in 1992 if she had been in business in 1991, Ms. Barrett said no. In return, she was correctly told she needed a CUP before she could obtain her business license.

Without protesting, or even deciding that the truth might help her after all, Ms. Barrett went away and operated her business anyway without a license.

Months later, Ms. Barrett was eventually found out and ticketed for conducting a business without a business license. When she protested that this was unfair, she was asked for some evidence that she had been in business since 1991, as this would avoid at least the CUP requirement and some of her problems.

She said that she had no business records of any kind, no receipts, no invoices or tax returns showing that she did business in Santa Monica in 1991. Her only “proof” was an undated flyer she had printed to solicit business, and a list of six people whom she claimed may remember her working on their cars in Santa Monica. By way of a sworn statement, she asked the city to believe her evidence.

The city attorney’s office reviewed this “evidence.” I was personally involved in that review. The evidence was meager, and that is being extremely charitable. Nonetheless, I concluded that she barely met the test of the zoning law, and ruled that Ms. Barrett could obtain a current business license without also having to obtain a CUP.

However, there remained the problem of doing business without a license, something Ms. Barrett admitted in sworn statements to doing since at least early 1991. To resolve this criminal charge, this office asked for a nominal $25 fine, which due to court-imposed surcharges increased to $76.

Ms. Barrett’s response was to run up legal bills her lawyer estimates at $10,000, to demand a trial, and to claim that the city in general, and the city attorney’s office in particular, was responsible for the foul-up, and for creating an anti-business atmosphere. Ms. Barrett took blame for nothing and gave credit to no one.

In a novel twist, stating that Ms. Barrett did lie and was responsible for her own predicament, the court nevertheless concluded that Ms. Barrett had suffered enough at her own hands, and rescuing her from further bad advice and self-inflicted wounds, dismissed the charges against her “in the interests of justice.”

Hopefully by now Ms. Barrett has relearned that it really does pay to tell the truth. Being a realist, I know that this may be expecting too much, given the spin she and her attorneys have attempted to place on her court “victory” over City Hall bureaucrats.

Nonetheless, the lesson should be clear. Ms. Barrett and her attorneys could have avoided a good deal of trouble, and would have wasted far less time and money if she had been honest from the beginning.

As for this office, we will continue to handle these cases in the same manner. We did nothing wrong here. We sought only what was fair and just, which in my book are exactly the correct goals.

JOSEPH LAWRENCE

Acting city attorney of Santa Monica