By CHRISTOPHER BUTLER

Nashville-Davidson County resident Pat Raynor is a widow who wants nothing more than to make an honest living running her own hair salon — where she would serve clients out of her home.

To establish such a home-based business, Raynor remodeled her garage and prepared her new business for an official inspection from the Tennessee State Board of Cosmetology.

Raynor eventually had to give up her ambitions, because of a Nashville ordinance.

“All I wanted to do was establish a legitimate business for myself and follow the rules and regulations that a beauty shop owner is supposed to follow, so I could keep my profession professional — but I couldn’t do that because I was afraid that somebody was going to turn me in,” Raynor said.

According to a Metro Nashville ordinance, many people who already operate a home-based business — whether they are music studio owners, piano teachers, or people who engage in any other legitimate business — could be breaking the law by having clients inside. They are also at risk of having code enforcement shut down their businesses.

That is because Metro Nashville’s Code of Ordinances specifies that no one may serve clients or other patrons on their home property.

There are currently 13,000 individuals in the county who operate a home-based business. Many of those people do not realize that county officials consider them unlawful if they invite patrons or clients into their homes. Furthermore, Nashville is one of the few cities in the nation with ordinances that restrict home-based business owners that have clients, customers and patrons into their homes, according to officials with the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.

The ordinance puzzles Raynor, who once operated a home-based salon in Illinois many years ago, openly and with no problems.

“This is such a crazy law. Sure, life is not always fair, but this is a very unevenly applied rule. How can you have a rule like that?” Raynor asked.

Metro Councilman Mike Jameson recently proposed to amend that ordinance. Jameson’s change would have allowed home-based business owners to have patrons, clients and deliveries, thus opening the patron rule up to eight per day. That proposal failed by a vote of 21-11.

Jameson’s research estimates that home-based businesses bring in more than $24 million in taxes to Nashville-Davidson County.

There are many people other than Raynor who wish to operate a home-based business. None of them, however, are willing to come forward and speak out against the current ordinance, for fear of repercussions, she said.

Raynor could rent commercial space elsewhere for her business, but to do is too costly, especially in the current recession.

DON’T ASK — AND DON’T TELL

Councilman Carter Todd was among those 24 council members who opposed Jameson’s proposal, and he was also among the most verbally outspoken against it.

From Todd’s point of view, a don’t ask, don’t tell policy is what works best for home-based businesses in Nashville.

“I thought our existing ordinance was just fine the way that it was. There really wasn’t anybody complaining about it, even though I will be the first to admit that it doesn’t quite work. Jameson’s changes left too many questions to be answered.”

Jameson’s proposed amendment, for instance, did not address what Todd said is the crux of the problem — Todd believes home-based businesses that serve clients may work well in certain parts of the city, but not in others.

“In my district (Green Hills), I’m sure there are probably plenty of businesses that don’t comply with the existing statute, but those people are very courteous and don’t bother their neighbors, and so no one complains. If there were any negative impacts on the neighborhood from such businesses, such as eight or nine cars in the driveway, then we would have shut them down tight. But one size does not fit all. Every neighborhood association president in my district told me that they don’t want businesses in their neighborhoods.”

Tennessee Watchdog asked Todd what he would say to a home-based business operator in the county, or even to someone like Raynor, who fears what might happen if code enforcement officials knew what they were doing.

Todd responded by saying the following: “If it’s not broken the way that it is, then why fix it? If you aren’t bothering anyone, then just try to comply with the existing law as best as possible.”

Todd’s rationale for opposing the amended ordinance, however, makes no sense to Raynor, who lives in the county’s Donelson area.

“Do I just take a chance of spending money and putting in a salon with the hopes that nobody turns me in? I can’t do that. The county has to have a set rule on it. Mr. Todd’s theory does not apply at all.”

Raynor promises that any home-based business of hers will not have any signage outside her home, nor will she have more than one to two clients at a time at her house.

A FACT OF LIFE

Jameson proposed amending the county’s statute because a young woman in Nashville who wanted to establish her own home-based business contacted him and requested clarity on what the law allowed her to do.

Before he proposed amending the county’s code on the matter, Jameson did extensive research and learned that Nashville-Davidson is one of the few counties in the nation that enforces such an ordinance. He also learned that county officials did not heavily enforce the ordinance until 1998, when they overhauled most of the code.

“It became clear to me in my research that there was never any community input on this issue (of home-based businesses that serve clients). It became obvious to me that home-based businesses with clients and patrons, wherever they are, is just a fact of life, especially in Nashville, which has a number of home recording studios,” Jameson said.

Jameson identified more than 200 home-based businesses in each council members’ individual districts. Going forward with his proposed change was difficult, though, because many home-based business operators were afraid to speak on their own behalves.

“I couldn’t turn this into a rampant inquisition of individuals trying to make an honest living in a difficult economy, said Jameson. “Among the council members, I did not sense a great deal of discomfort with what is going on in their neighborhoods, but I did sense a great fear of unknown and unintended consequences.”

Jameson only introduced his amended ordinance after significant input from community members. Because of that input, Jameson introduced a three-year sunset provision on the change (meaning Council members would gather in three years to review any problems and make changes, if circumstances warranted).

Jameson, who has chosen not to seek reelection, partially blames himself for the amended ordinance failing, due to his being away on a family vacation. At the time, opponents of the change were busy in Nashville lobbying Council members.

“In eight years on the Council I’ve only lost two bills that I was the prime sponsor on, and this loss was the more devastating to me,” Jameson told Tennessee Watchdog.

Meanwhile, a number of Nashville-Davidson County residents who operate home-based businesses that take clients inside continue to remain unaware that they are literal outlaws.

“This issue isn’t sexy enough for a lot of media coverage. A lot of code enforcement officials don’t catch on to the problem because no red lights go off in their heads when they see forms that say a person’s home address is the same as their residence — but I think that’s something the clerk’s office may be aware of as of now,” said Jameson.

Jameson predicts that things will continue as they are for the foreseeable future, but he hopes his colleagues will revisit the issue again.

“These people are generating revenues (for the county), so surely we can do something to legitimize them. All of my research has shown that such businesses (in other cities) have never caused an intrusion or inconvenience into the neighborhoods in which they reside.

“I think business owners are too proud to allow things to get out of hand, so we ought not disparage them.”

Christopher Butler is the editor of Tennessee Watchdog and the Director of Government Accountability for the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. Contact him at chris@tennesseepolicy.org

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