“Where is your business located?” This question has become difficult to answer for some local business owners, despite calls to the City of Foley and the Alabama Department of Revenue. Even some Foley city officials have met confusion recently as to what falls within the city limits, and what falls outside city limits but is still within the City of Foley’s police jurisdiction.

Issues have arisen because in recent years both Foley’s city limits and the police jurisdiction have shifted. As new property is annexed into the city, limits are more like a constantly changing line. The police jurisdiction is required by law to extend six miles past the city limits of Foley due to the population increase that was seen in the 2000 Census.

All businesses that fall within the limits of the police jurisdiction are required to pay half of the municipal sales tax, which is 2 percent in Foley.

The services offered by the Foley Police Department to outlying areas have also been limited since July 2007. Businesses that lay beyond the corporation limits of Foley, like those in Bon Secour who have encountered issues recently, only receiving limited services. These businesses in the police jurisdiction would still receive emergency services, but daily police patrols have been pulled back to the city limits since 2007. These business owners include Butch Forsythe, who owns Aquila Seafood and Evans Russell who owns Bon Secour Grocery. These businessmen, along with some of their neighbors encountered confusion when they found out that they would no longer receive all services from Foley, they also assumed that sales taxes to the City of Foley would no longer be a requirement.

Police Chief David Wilson said if the people within the police jurisdiction are in need of assistance, someone will come out to assist them. He said emergency calls usually go through the 911 call center first, who usually notifies the Sheriff’s office. Wilson said that the Foley PD has a good relationship with the Sheriff’s office, and that if no deputy is nearby, the Foley PD will be notified and sent out. Wilson said that especially in an emergency situation, jurisdiction lines stop mattering so much, everyone shifts their focus to protecting the public and catching the criminal.

Of the three business owners present at this week’s city council said that they had not received notification that they were still within the City’s police jurisdiction. Russell recalls seeing that the City would be pulling back their police patrols, which he took to mean that the police jurisdiction had changed.

David Whetstone, legal counsel for Forsythe and Russell, asked that the council could give them “a little relief” and hear the issues “that they have with the police jurisdiction and ask that they be treated fairly as business people in the Foley police jurisdiction.” His clients feel like they have not been treated fairly “under the circumstances,” but they do not consider Foley to be their adversary — they would like to consider Foley their friends.

Whetstone likened the police jurisdiction of Foley to a “moving target, especially for business people who did not know if they were in, or if they were out. These are business people who have examples of when they have tried to find out if they were in the police jurisdiction and were told they were not. What I understand is that Foley’s police jurisdiction is intact, but that you are stripping out certain services in the police jurisdiction.”

Whetstone asked on behalf of his clients that the City of Foley try to find a way to forgive the owed back taxes and interest, and stated that they think that some degree of “notice that we think Foley should give the citizens that they are out of the police jurisdiction so that they would be able to collect the tax which is due.” He said he thinks that it is only appropriate that relief be provided, “because of they confusion as to whether these people were in or out of the police jurisdiction.”

Whetstone also asked that if these business owners were going to receive minimal services then they should only have to have a minimal business license.

This summer, Russell and Forsythe received letters this summer from the Alabama Department of Revenue, who collect all state and municipal taxes for Foley. Businesses are being charged back taxes from 2007 to present, along with penalties and interest. Aquila Seafood received a bill for over $8,000. Forsythe said the $8,000 that he now owes will have to come out of his own pocket because he “didn’t collect a dime for it, I have never seen anything to do with Foley down in my area. We are about as far from Foley as you can get.” The owner of Town and Country, also in Bon Secour, was informed that he owed over $18,000 that he did not collect as taxes from customers. Forsythe added that “this is just another burden right now, and I was unaware of this tax to start with.”

When Russell was first opening his new store in Bon Secour, he was told by his cigarette supplier that he would have to pay taxes to Foley. He talked to his neighbor down the street who owns a Citgo gas station that is closer to Foley than his new store would be, and found that his neighbor did not pay taxes to the City of Foley, so he switched suppliers. While he was preparing to open his new store, he came to the City of Foley for a building permit, but he was told to go to the county. When he came back to get a liquor license, he got the same response.

At a previous meeting, Russell was told by city officials that if it weren’t for services offered by the City of Foley, that he could not afford his insurance. Russell contacted the rating service that provided the rating for his location. He found that the rating for his location was based solely on the Bon Secour Fire Department and their agreement with the Magnolia Springs Fire Department to aid them in an emergency. He said, “it had nothing to do with Foley.”

Russell recalls seeing it advertised in the paper that the police patrols would cease in his area, but he was never notified that he was still in the police jurisdiction. He claims that everything “was actually the city’s fault,” but that he doesn’t blame anyone in particular. 

The City of Foley did not even know that Town and Country was there until a city employee drove past.

Because the City of Foley no longer hands out business licenses for businesses that fall outside of city limits but within the police jurisdiction, revenue department officials said it is difficult to keep up with new businesses without paperwork going across the desk in Foley. One of the businesses involved in the complaint did not show up on Foley’s radar until recently when a city employee drove by and noticed the business. This store had been in operation for at least two years.

After Hurricane Ivan the City of Foley no longer gave out building permits in the police jurisdiction and preformed building inspections because the city was not equipped to handle the flood plains. Since then, all building permits and inspections were handled by the county.

Since complaints have arisen, two city officials spent hours riding through the police jurisdiction, identifying businesses that may have been missed. Eight more businesses were found that were not collecting sales tax for the City of Foley, but should have been.

Meg Hellmich, a revenue officer for the City of Foley believes that these business owners did not set out to cheat the city out of any money, but that they were simply mistaken about where their business was located. “It has been a very confusing series of miscommunications and misinformation.” she said.

Hellmich also said these business owners just asked the wrong questions. They asked if a business that was not in the police jurisdiction owed taxes to the City of Foley, when they should have asked if they were in the City of Foley’s police jurisdiction.

Hellmich also said that to the best of her knowledge about ten businesses did not collect taxes after police patrols were stopped.

A lawyer representing some business owners who have been impacted by this confusion claimed that even other municipalities have been confused as to where Foley’s jurisdiction ends and their’s begins. Elberta and Summerdale’s police department have both arrested criminals within the Foley police jurisdiction because they believed themselves to be within their own jurisdiction.

When this case was brought up before the Foley City Council earlier this week, city officials agreed that there was a gap in the communication pertaining to the police jurisdiction and sales taxes owed, and acknowledged that this was an issue that needed to be solved quickly, before any other businesses encountered the same issues.

Foley Mayor Koniar said “It is a council decision. We are going to check with legal and see what we can and can’t do.”

This case opens up the question of whose responsibility is it to inform business owners the taxes they owe, the city, or should the business owners seek the information out themselves?