Horseshoe Lessons

Horseshoe Lessons

By Ralph Hood

May 1999

few years ago, a pilot/surgeon friend — let us call him Joe — decided there was entirely too much regulation in the medical field. He determined that he would, in his words, get out and "leave medicine in the hands of Bill and Hillary, since they want to run it anyway."

Having made up his mind, Joe gave up medicine and bought some convenience stores. Thus, he thought, he would avoid all that government regulation.

Well, as we rednecks say, it don't take Joe long to look at no horseshoe. He made some good money with the convenience stores, but is today back in the medical field. He still gripes about government interference, but is now well aware that retailing is no safe haven from such interference.

I thought about Joe recently, when I spoke to Linn Co-Op Oil Company in Cedar Rapids, IA. Linn is a large concern (900 people showed up at the annual meeting), and one of the things they do is operate convenience stores.

In his annual report, the executive director, Jim Fisher, told us a little about operating "C" stores. Jim is an entertaining fellow, and I can't really tell it the way he did, but it went something like this ...

Of course, you have to have a business license, for each little store. Then, because our customers do like a beer every now and then, we have to get a weekday beer permit. The customers fussed because we couldn't sell beer on Sunday, so we had to get a permit to do that. Some of our customers still smoke, so we had to get a permit and special tax stamps from the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms people. In fact, we got two permits from them, because we do sell a few shotguns shells to our bird hunting customers.

We also had to get gas pump licenses for all four hoses, and that doesn't count the special permit for underground storage tanks. We sell a few sandwiches, so we had to get a carry out food permit. Some of our customers wanted to sit down and eat their sandwiches on the premises, so we had to get another permit for that.

The state came around wanting us to support the lottery, so we agreed to sell tickets. Then, danged if they didn't make us get another special permit for that. All of this, of course, is on top of the sales tax permit that allows us to collect the state's money for them.

* * *

By the time Jim finished, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. What a tough business. Then it dawned on me that every single permit he mentioned can also apply on a typical airport. Plus, we have our own rules, regs, permits, and taxes that apply only to aviation retailers.

Somehow, folks, we need to spread the word that the customer pays for every bit of this. It is a fact that retailers don't pay taxes, they collect them. Tell that story the next time you talk to your Rotary club.