Every year, around the first week of May, there's a fest held in Hamburg to honor the harbor. You can call it a birthday party, or just a harbor-fest.
Over the last couple of years, there's been grumbling to occur.
Typically, you go and apply for a stand, and pay a fee. For this, you get a permit to operate and make money during this entire week. For some folks, it's a substantial amount of money to come in. The fee business? What is generally said...is that the fees for one single stand are fairly hefty but it's related to profits. You can go figure beer, sodas, brats, kebabs.....they all lead to some profit.
Well....the stand folks who've played by the rule and paid the hefty fees...are talking now....way head of the May 2018 fest. Nine months ahead of time. Their concern?
Illegal stands. These are stands which just pop up....with no permit, and operate for hours or days, with activity by the city to shut them down. In essence, black income. You'd think at the very least....the tax folks would be highly disturbed, but they haven't really shown any interest in the activity.
The accusation here? Well....a lot of these stands (no one will say all of them) are hooked to some left-wing political organization. So the accusation is that the city government is tolerating these stands and simply refusing to shut them down, when they don't have a permit.
Up until the G-20 Summit period, you could have continued this trend, but a fair number of Hamburg residents are now noticing things.
All of this would suggest that the city of Hamburg will have to show some strong-arm tactics and attempt to shut down some unregistered stands....thus triggering a confrontation in the midst of a harbor fest.
I sat and pondered over this whole thing. To operate a stand, you present paperwork that you are a legit charity, recognized local club, or a business operation....then present a sum of money for the size of the stall you intend to operate. It's a pretty basic situation. In this case, the illicit stand-operators apparently aren't operating as a legit club or charity, and probably don't have tax paperwork to cover their situation. The profits made? If you aren't a recognized club or charity....you pay regular taxes on income. For these illegal stands, the question is.....are they paying taxes? I would have some doubts.
One might think that if the city doesn't act this time around.....cleaning up the illegal stands, then the clubs and business operations will sue to get their money back.
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