It's the Sunday before New Year's Eve and I realize I haven't received my 2009 liquor license from the State of Georgia. I look on line and see that it is active, so they received my application in November, but my liquor companies will not deliver after January 1 without a copy of the new license. I forget to call on Monday, but call the Georgia Department of Revenue which issues the license on Tuesday morning. The license was issued the first week of December. Apparently it was lost in the mail. I asked, can duplicate be mailed to me and am told that yes, not a problem. "How long will it take?", I ask. "Two to three weeks". I explain to the totally uninformed rep that I will not be able to buy or sell alcohol until I get the license. He says all he can do is ask for a duplicate. It's like speaking to a machine. I hang up and get to work in the kitchen and stew it over. That night I decide I will just drive to the Ga Dept of Revenue office the next morning (New Year's Eve) and pick up a duplicate.
I show up at the office shortly after 9:00 am. Speak to a new rep who says there is not a request for a duplicate on file. I ask for a duplicate again. She informs me I will not be able to pick it up then, will have to come back on Friday, after the New Year's holiday. Ok, that will work. She goes to work on the request and comes upon a notice that the license was not issued because I had an outstanding sales tax that was not paid. I pale. I had received a notice from the Sales tax division the previous week saying I owed the September taxes, plus $900.00 in penalties and interest. I had researched this problem when the notice came in and had found that I had indeed paid the sales tax, that the check had been written and deposited by the Ga dept of Revenue in October, just like it has been done every month of every year for 16 years. I had faxed the information with the canceled check to the number and office on the original notice and I had sent a certified copy of all the paperwork and had made a formal protest.
"Did you bring that paper work with you?" asks the impatient woman at the window. "No, I didn't because I did not know this was the issue with my license, because the original rep on the phone had not told me this".
"Well, you will have to wait for this to be cleared up before a license is issued." say the rep.
"So my business cannot serve alcohol and is in the toilet for three weeks, while the issue is being researched to find that I had not caused this problem?", I ask incredulously, but gently.
"Let me talk to my supervisor."
Thank God for supervisors. I believe they are the only people in the world who apparently can look at the whole picture. The License Supervisor asks for a Supervisor from the Sales Tax division on the fourth floor to come down and see me. I wait 30 minutes and am greeted by a lovely woman, who asks "Did you bring a copy of the check?" "No, I did not know I needed it?" We spend the next hour trying to pull up a copy of the canceled check up through Suntrust's website where I had originally seen and printed it. It's not coming up. I am calling my sous at the restaurant and tell him in Spanglish where to find the paperwork and how to fax a letter. My cell phone dies in the middle of this. I am writing down his cell phone number to call him back from the office phone. He is having trouble finding the file, but he does. He has trouble sending the fax, he cannot distinguish the sound of a busy signal from a fax connection sound.
I call my trusty bank manager (another supervisor) and ask her to try to bring up the check and leave her looking for it with the fax number at the Ga dept of Revenue 4th floor office. She is having trouble. All through this I will say that the Sales Tax Supervisor is sitting patiently, laughing really and telling me not to have a stoke, she will wait. She is a gem. But no fax.
I call my husband and ask him to go the restaurant and help Mel send the fax. While we wait, the Sales Tax Supervisor and I discuss all the paperwork that I had faxed to dispute the charge. She does admit that I have had a perfect record for 16 years and if she sees the frigging check she will ok the license. She goes upstairs to look for my paperwork I had faxed in the previous week with the copy of the check.
I sit in the office and think about all the prep I should be doing at the restaurant for New Year's Eve. I call my bank and speak to someone in customer service, they all know me after the stolen checks debacle, and have them issue two cashiers checks for $5150.00 for me to pick up to mail with my city liquor license application which must be postmarked today.
The Sales Tax Supervisor's assistant comes into the office with a handful of faxes that have come from Mel, my husband, and the bank supervisor. I tell her that the Supervisor is back on the 4th floor, she goes and finds her, and they come back. They have the copies, 4 copies now.
The Sales Tax Supervisor gets on the computer and enters all the details from the back of the check. The check had not been entered into my account properly. A clerical error. She fixes the whole situation and documents the adjustments and my tax problem is solved. She says I can go back to the license supervisor and tell her to read the notes she has put on my account. I ask her to do this for me. She does with a smile. I am told to wait in the lobby again.
After a couple of minutes I go up to the original woman in the window and ask if the License Supervisor has spoken to the Sales Tax Supervisor. I am told the License Supervisor is not in her office. I ask if I can go to the bathroom. "yes, of course", she says. In the ladies room I run into the License Supervisor who says it has all been cleared up and to come back on Friday after 2:00 pm, go to the first desk and the license will be ready.
I go to the bank and pick up the perfectly prepared cashier's checks and run into someone I know. We speak for a few minutes, I go around the corner to the post office and am informed that they have closed at noon, seven minutes earlier and I cannot send the checks and applications through certified mail. I plead, but they don't care. I start to fill out a regular envelope to mail, thinking in the back of my mind that if anything is lost it will be these two checks and that I don't have a damn stamp.
That's why God invented Fed Ex. I drive 4 miles to the Fed Ex store. The checks and applications are off.
Lesson learned. Do this early Marla.
