RESOLUTION NO. 25-0002
A RESOLUTION MANHATTAN BEACH CITY COUNCIL IMPOSING A FEE TO SUPPORT THE CITY’S REGULATION OF BUSINESSES The Manhattan Beach City Council hereby resolves as follows:
SECTION 1.
Chapter 6.01 of the Manhattan Beach Municipal Code (MBMC) empowers the City to license and regulate businesses operating in the City. The City also taxes such businesses. (MBMC, §§ 6.01.030, 6.01.040, 6.01.290.) The City’s business licensing program, and its business license tax, serve independent purposes. The licensing program is regulatory and designed to ensure that all businesses operating within the City comply with relevant laws to protect health, safety and public welfare. The tax is intended to raise revenue for City services. The City would implement its regulatory program even if it did not impose a business license tax.
The City incurs administrative costs to implement its regulatory program. It is thus authorized to impose a fee on regulated businesses to recover those regulatory costs provided the amount each business pays is reasonably related to its burdens on or benefits from the regulatory program. (Cal. Const., art. XIII C, § 1, subd. (e)(3).) City staff have therefore analyzed the costs incurred to administer the licensing program, such as ensuring each licensed business “has complied in all respects with all requirements or provisions of the laws of the City, County or State.” (MBMC, §§ 6.01.020, 6.01.190.) City staff have determined an appropriate regulatory fee to be $17 per business per year, with an annual increase tied to the appropriate Consumer Price Index. This will recover only part of the City’s total regulatory costs; no licensee will bear the full cost of regulation, and its equal application reflects the City’s roughly equal burden to enforce its licensing requirements for each business.
SECTION 2. Pursuant to Section 6.01.290 of the Manhattan Beach Municipal Code, the City shall impose a $17 processing fee for any application for a new business license or for the renewal of any existing business license. This fee shall increase as of January 1 of each calendar year with reference to the 12-month percent change in the most recently published annual Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), West Region, as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (the “CPI Change”), provided that the annual increase shall be no lower than 2 percent and no higher than 10 percent if the actual CPI Change is either lower than 2 percent or higher than 10 percent.
SECTION 3. This Resolution shall take effect on the same date as Ordinance No. 25-0001.
SECTION 4. The City Clerk shall certify to the adoption of this Resolution.
ADOPTED on January 21, 2025.
AYES:
NOES:
ABSENT:
ABSTAIN:
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AMY THOMAS HOWORTH
Mayor
ATTEST:
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LIZA TAMURA
City Clerk
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