VIP Auto Tire Center location has history of struggles with city

Carlos Barajas moved to Maricopa nearly four years ago with the intention of settling down and opening a small car lot.

He secured a parcel of property located on the corner of SR 347 and Edwards Ave. and invested more than $150,000 in securing merchandise, licensing and other requirements.

However, that business never came to fruition, and now Barajas is looking to sell his property and get out of town. “They broke me down,” Barajas said. “I hate the city and want to leave.”

City hall is the reason Barajas gives behind his failure to launch a business.

He said he got a business license from the city to open his car lot in December 2007, but when he went to renew that license in January 2008, he was denied.

Business licenses must be renewed annually, so a license acquired in January would be valid until the next January, and a license acquired in March would also only be valid until January.

Barajas said the reason given behind his denial was that the city was requesting the property have two entry/exit paths.

“The structure I bought was already in existence before the city was incorporated, so it should not have been an issue,” Barajas said.

Barajas said he continued making his mortgage payments on the property and tried to work something out with the city, but eventually he gave up and rented his business to an automotive repair specialist, Gonzlo Herrera.

Herrera, like Barajas, said he had difficulty dealing with the city.

“I would go in, and they would hand me a piece of paper. I would come back, and they would hand me another,” he said. “You think they would just have one packet and get you in and out.”

However, Herrera also said that some of the difficulties also came at the expense of his landlord.

“When I moved into the building, it was falling apart. It was obvious that Barajas had not done the work necessary to get the building up to code,” Herrera said. “Whoever gave him a permit, it was obviously a mistake.”

Herrera said he worked through the city’s ‘hoops’ for the next several months until he reached the same sticking point as Barajas. “They told me I needed to construct another entrance.”

At that point Herrera said he had already spent $9,000, and it would have cost him another $24,000 to construct the entrance. However, he was able to successfully petition the entrance through a grandfather clause.

Herrera said today he still has issues with the city, even though they have “thrown him a bone by allowing him to do the tires on city cars.”

“I want to put up a light for my sign, but they won’t let me, yet they allow the newer, big name businesses down the road to put up all the signs and lights they want,” he said. “They only want to cater to the big businesses with the big names.”

Barajas has put the building Herrera calls home up for sale, and the mechanic says his future is unclear but, if he has to leave the building, he will likely return to his roots as a mobile mechanic.

“All I know is cars; it is not like I can go out and become a doctor,” Herrara said.

While Herrera plans to stay in the city, Barajas, after failing to start his business in Maricopa, went to Phoenix, got his permit issued and approved in five minutes.

“It is unbelievable how easy it was to start a business in Phoenix compared to Maricopa,” Barajas said.

“When I was going through the process in Maricopa, they were giving me difficulties about putting flags on the cars and writing on windshields, but in Phoenix none of that was an issue,” Barajas said. “There is money in Maricopa and people who need services, but the city makes it difficult.”

Photo by Michael K. Rich