Treasury Division
On-Line Payments
We currently have Parking, Traffic, and Criminal tickets that can be paid
on-line. For your convenience, we accept Visa, MasterCard, and Discover.
Opening a Business and Obtaining Permits & Licenses
Anyone who is operating a business within the City of Little Rock is required to
obtain a business license or privilege license. If you are a restaurant or
catering service in Little Rock, you
must also apply for the 2% Hotel & Restaurant Gross Receipts Tax.
Application:
Application may be made in person at the
Zoning Dept., Planning and Development, 723 W. Markham Street, or we
can mail or fax an application to the business owner. All applications have to
be approved by the Zoning Department. Applications will also be
available on-line. Once Zoning has received and approved the
application, it is forwarded to the Treasury Management Division.
The Treasury Management Division will review the application and setup an
account for the business. Any fees will be determined by the information
included on the application. If any other information is needed, Treasury
Management personnel will contact the business owner.
Note:
If your business is a home based business, you may apply in person at
Planning and Development, Zoning Department, located at 723 W. Markham Street or complete an online Home Occupation Accessory Use form along with the online business license application.
For your convenience you may pay your business license with a credit card; we
accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover. To pay by credit card, please call (501)
371-4568.
Sec. 17-38. Payment required
The carrying on of any business, profession or occupation of whatever kind or
nature within the city is a privilege subject to an annual business tax. Any
person who maintains a business location within the city or engages in any
business, profession or occupation, regardless of whether or not all functions
peculiar to the business are effected within the city, shall pay an annual
business tax. The business tax shall apply to all and shall not be limited to
those businesses, professions or occupations as classified specifically by this
article.
(Code 1961, § 21-1; Ord. No. 18,128, § 1, 11-2-99) State law references:
Privilege taxes authorized, A.C.A. § 26-77-102.
False Alarm Synopsis
Why have a False Alarm Ordinance?
On December 22, 1998, the City of Little Rock Board of Directors passed the
False Alarm Reduction Ordinance in order to encourage alarm owners and alarm
monitoring businesses to assume appropriate responsibility for the maintenance
and mechanical reliability of alarm systems, to prevent unnecessary responses
to false alarms by emergency personnel, and to protect citizens from the
dangers of emergency personnel and equipment being inappropriately utilized
because of answers to unwarranted alarms. The ordinance also establishes a
schedule of civil penalties for repeat offenders of the ordinance.
What is a false alarm?
An alarm call is considered to be false if a request for immediate assistance of
emergency personnel is made and:
-
an actual emergency situation or threatened criminal activity does not or did
not exist.
-
is a result of accidentally or negligently activated signals, as well as any
signal that is the result of faulty, malfunctioning, or improperly installed or
maintained equipment.
-
is a result of an act of God (i.e. weather conditions).
-
emergency personnel are dispatched and the call is cancelled while the
responding personnel are en route.
-
the responding emergency personnel determines that the request was otherwise
unwarranted.
If an alarm is activated and emergency personnel are dispatched, it is still
considered to be a false alarm if the request was made as a result of the
following:
-
A low battery in the alarm system
-
Power outage or power failure
-
Telephone line failure
-
Thunderstorms and any other weather-related causes
-
Rodents, pets, etc. triggering the alarm system
-
Defective/malfunctioning alarm system equipment
-
Anyone who is allowed access into a home, apartment, business, or other
building who fails to disarm the alarm system (in which the alarm system owner
is still responsible for the false alarm)
What is a real alarm?
Alarms are considered to be valid and not false only under these circumstances:
-
The alarm was activated as a result of criminal activity
-
The alarm was activated and there was proof of attempted criminal activity
-
The alarm system was activated by an alarm user upon a good faith belief that
an actual or threatened crime is about to occur
How much are false alarm civil penalties?
Because any alarm system can malfunction at any time without warning, the
ordinance allows three alarms per year in which no civil penalty is assessed
against the alarm owner. If the alarm user exceeds the three alarm limit, civil
penalties are assessed on the following schedule:
|
Alarm Number |
Amount of Civil Penalty |
| 1st through 3rd |
Free, no charge – letter is sent after 2nd alarm |
| 4th |
$25 |
| 5th |
$50 |
| 6th and all subsequent alarms |
Varies depending on agency responding:
$96 – Police response
$300 – Fire response to a house
$450 – Ambulance response
$1,000 – Fire response to a larger building
|
If emergency response personnel respond to multiple false alarms in one day,
each call is counted as a separate violation. If instances where more than one
agency responds to the same call, the civil penalties may increase accordingly.
Invoices for fines are generally sent within 3 to 10 business days after the
date the alarm occurred and fines are considered to be past due thirty (30)
days past the invoice date. If violators cannot pay, refuses to pay, or wishes
to contest false alarm charges, the matter will be brought to Little Rock
Environmental Court.
What can I do to prevent false alarms?
-
Test your alarm system—check your alarm system documentation to find out how
and how often to inspect it. If you don’t have this information or need help,
call your alarm system’s customer service department.
-
Make sure that your contact information and call list is current and
up-to-date. If it has been a while since you’ve updated this information or if
someone on your list has moved or changed jobs, contact your alarm monitoring
company’s customer service department and make sure that names and phone
numbers are current.
-
“If you give them a key, give them the code!” If a family member, real estate
agent, a babysitter, or anyone else who is allowed access to your home and sets
off your alarm, YOU are responsible for the false alarm. Make sure that whoever
has a key knows how to identify themselves to an alarm monitoring company if
the alarm is set off by accident.
-
A lot of false alarms for about any type of building—houses, businesses,
churches, etc.—are as a result of someone trying to open a locked front door.
In some installations, if you push on a locked door hard enough, the door may
move a little bit, but just enough for an alarm sensors to loose contact and
cause a false alarm.
-
If you recently had a false alarm, find out which zone or sensor was activated,
and try to figure out why the alarm system was activated. If the same zone or
sensor is triggering the system multiple times, then you may have a defective
sensor.
-
For more tips for preventing false alarms, you can visit the
FARA (False Alarm Reduction Association) Consumer Information web page.
If you have any questions regarding your alarm system, please call your alarm
system or monitoring company’s customer service department. If you have any
questions regarding the City’s false alarm ordinance or false alarm civil
penalties, you may call the false alarm collector at (501) 399-3409 or
(501) 371-4532.
Treasury Division Phone Numbers: