Austin Parks comming down on Martial Artists

[SanHeChuan]

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/parks/commercialuse.htm

Austin wants to charge for the commercial use of parks. So a dude charging 5 dollars a head for MA in the elements has to pay 500-1500/6mo. to use the park and get 1M insurance.

[David Jamieson]

ask trucking companies to pay higher user fees for using your highways. They'll get more money than what they'll get out of hassling tai chi hippies.

[Knifefighter]

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/parks/commercialuse.htm

Austin wants to charge for the commercial use of parks. So a dude charging 5 dollars a head for MA in the elements has to pay 500-1500/6mo. to use the park and get 1M insurance.

Sounds good. They should do the same thing with fitness trainers who use the parks. Open a business and you have to pay a business license tax. No reason you should be able to use taxpayer supported facilities to make a profit without paying the fees that other businesses have to pay.

[Reyth]

I think they should tax by the movement actually -- carbon emissions you know...

[yutyeesam]

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/parks/commercialuse.htm

Austin wants to charge for the commercial use of parks. So a dude charging 5 dollars a head for MA in the elements has to pay 500-1500/6mo. to use the park and get 1M insurance.

Interesting. Seems like it'd be sort of difficult to enforce. Then again, TX rangers are just lookin for a reason.

This is sort of contradictory to the whole concept they have of being able to film anywhere public in Austin. If those films are being marketed and sold, then the film makers would need to be charged, too.

And if a musician is playing, and people are giving donations, that musician now has to pay...this seems so contradictory to what Austin was about.

I guess these are hard economic times.

[Reyth]

Yes and let's keep in mind that in hard economic times you LOWER taxes not raise them!

[David Jamieson]

Your parks have been taken from you and turned into outdoor business areas. what should happen is they should just let people use the parks for whatever they like so long as they are unobtrusive and not interfering with others who wish to use the public park.

there are other laws to deal with conflict between citizens, just apply those.

making a few bucks from your students and being penalized for that is not the point of what is happening when you really look at it.

teach for nothing in the park. problem solved.

make your bank in privates, on site or in your studio.

done.

[MartialDev]

What about a mother pushing her child on the swing? That is an unlicensed exchange of value too. If she doesn't want to pay an additional swing fee, then she should use her own backyard.

And how about those dogs playing fetch? They get to run around and play with sticks, without paying a penny in taxes. Does that sound fair? No way. Those mutts are moochers.

Let's gather up some moneymaking ideas here, and forward them to the Austin parks dept.

[SPJ]

there are free ways and toll highways.

there are free bridges and toll bridges.

so there are free recreational parks

there are also paid service parks.

just label the park as paid commercial use park or not free for access.

[David Jamieson]

fee for use parks would have to be built using private dollars and private property.

fee for use parks that have already been paid for lock stock and barrel by the people is not an acceptable idea. I mean unless you're ok with getting screwed by local government. lol

businesses such as transport companies and construction companies put the most damage and cause the most congestion on publically paid for highways.

I think it's probably a better idea to look there really as far as fee for use stuff goes.

as for the parks, well, I think it's right for anyone who is making money in the country they live in should pay taxes and therefore should have a business license, which is already part and parcel.

community centres typically charge reduced rates to have instruction of this sort just so they can offer the programs a lot of the time.

parks should be free to use on occasion by any business, but I don't think they should be abused as a permanent place of business by anyone cause they are too lazy or too stingy to get a proper place of their own to conduct business.

Probably a better idea to have park services people hand out warnings to repeat abusers of the park, but to penalize someone who wants to take his tai chi class (et al) outside once in a while is bogus.

[sha0lin1]

Well the problem probably does not really come from martial artists, there are only a few groups who give lessons in the parks. The others are just users, there is a group of Tai Chi players that meet up to do push hands, but no money is exchanged. There are however, several fitness instructors and companies who use the parks for business, doing boot camps, and such. This has been going on for several years now and the number of these businesses keep growing. These people are charging money for their services, and a pretty penny too, and don't pay a dime in rent and probably some pocket the money and don't pay taxes either. So I would have to agree that since they are using the parks for commercial gain that they should have to pay some sort of fee to do this and give back to the taxpayers like myself. Martial artists or not. I don't think it is fair that a business can operate on public grounds which are supported and maintained by tax money and not have to pay something. The legislation probably is not directed at the martial artists but at these other businesses that regularly use the parks.