City Councilman Eric Garcetti visited Atwater Village Wednesday to announce a partnership with the online company Docstoc.
It will offer prospective business owners in Los Angeles free access to the company's one-stop shop for business licenses, License123.
Those seeking to open a business in the city can now go to the website License123.com, where they can download necessary city, county and state permitting documents, rather than going to each jurisdiction separately or physically.
Garcetti announced the partnership at Link-n-Hops, a specialty sausage and beer restaurant in Atwater Village. (The shop features vegan sausages.)
Owner Andy Hasroun recently navigated the process of obtaining a business license using traditional "technology."
He's keen on the difference an aggregated product like this could make.
Users will have to access the site from Garcetti's www.CD13.com city website in order to gain free access.
Depending on the needed documents, business owners could save the $30-
$40 it would otherwise cost to use the service.
They can also save potentially hundreds of dollars more by not having to figure out which permits are needed and chasing them down individually, Garcetti said.
Garcetti, who is running for mayor, has said repeatedly that his administration would make streamlining city bureaucracy a priority.
"I want entrepreneurs to know that L.A. is open for business, and
License123 will help potential business owners access information that once took a huge amount of time, or even a paid lobbyist, to gather with just a few clicks of a mouse,'' said Garcetti, who chairs the City Council's Jobs and Business Development Committee.
Docstoc and License123 founder and CEO Jason Nazar said he was "excited to be teaming up with the city of Los Angeles and Eric Garcetti's office to remove this hassle for our city's businesses."
