The Business Licensing Division of the Department of Commerce is seeing a steady flow of farmers coming into get business licenses for 2016.
DOC staff say this started last week which coincides with the advertisement of a new Request for Proposals for the supply of local produce for the School Lunch Program.
Farmers are organizing themselves in groups to bid for the School Lunch Program contract, in this second round of bidding.
One of the eligibility requirements for the SLP bidding is that farmers must have valid business licenses.
According to DOC staffers, very few farmers came in to renew their business licenses late last year, but since last week there’s been a steady flow of farmers filing applications for 2016 business licenses.
Decemeber 31st was the last day to renew business licenses for this new year.
A penalty fee of $2 is assessed for any business that continues to operate without a valid business license.
According to DOC, the exact number of business licenses that were issued for 2015 was 3,813.
As of today more than 2,400 new business licenses have been issued…which means there’s still about 1,400 business licenses from last year that have not been renewed.
