New Hampshire town said NO to the so-called Diaper Spa

[Kawaharu]

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/02/15/the-diaper-spa-denied-permit-to-operate-in-new-hampshire-town/?p1=recirc_mostpopular

[ValentinesStuff]

She would be better going full rural, and finding an isolated farmhouse or other dwelling in unincorporated land.

[littlebopeeper]

39 minutes ago, Kawaharu said:

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/02/15/the-diaper-spa-denied-permit-to-operate-in-new-hampshire-town/?p1=recirc_mostpopular

This is behind a paywall.  If you summarize it, it would be helpful.  I am interested in the obvious zoning conflict here.

[Babypants]

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/02/15/the-diaper-spa-denied-permit-to-operate-in-new-hampshire-town/

This is not behind a paywall.  The application was denied as a nonconforming C-1 entity not suitable for an R-1 district.  It is revealing that the applicant apparently did not know that you need a permit to operate an in-home business open to the public. 

[~Brian~]

@Kawaharu

Thank You for the update on this one!

While I SUPPORT the Idea of the Diaper Spa, and the REASONING behind it, as well as the fact that this lady is a professional, and she is trying to set up somewhere where AB/DL individuals can enjoy the services of the spa, I wonder if the PLACE she wanted to use is the wrong place.  Having such a business near a park, and in a RESIDENTIAL area is darn SURE going to get someone's attention, and it DID!  They said NO, and they have that right to deny the ability of this lady to so this IN THE AREA she wanted to do that.

IF she decided to have this business in a rural area, in a place that would not attract negative attention, I think she would do OK, but you also have to understand that there are people in NH that may NOT want this business in a location near a park or a public place where CHILDREN congregate:  As has been suggested, perhaps a farmhouse or a large house that could accommodate this business would be appropriate.

Brian

[FretaBWet]

I used to live in the next town over. She made two really bad mistakes here. The first was her website was set up to generate business and she originally advertised that there was a nearby park as a plus for staying there. Sorry, but that is just completely stupid on her part. Of course the town is going to protest, this is a fetish for these people and you advertise a local park where children play as being available. The second mistake is the location of the house itself. If you are unaware of the property values in NH go on zillow just for fun. You would be upset if the house you own is being taxed as a $700,000 home and a home down the street started running a business, any type of business and your house drops $100,000 in market value. There are no cheap houses in NH. There are lots of rural properties you could run a business like this at but not in the southern half of the state. Any business requires due diligence to be successful. She obviously didn't do any.

Hugs,

Freta

[ValentinesStuff]

2 hours ago, FretaBWet said:

I used to live in the next town over. She made two really bad mistakes here. The first was her website was set up to generate business and she originally advertised that there was a nearby park as a plus for staying there. Sorry, but that is just completely stupid on her part. Of course the town is going to protest, this is a fetish for these people and you advertise a local park where children play as being available. The second mistake is the location of the house itself. If you are unaware of the property values in NH go on zillow just for fun. You would be upset if the house you own is being taxed as a $700,000 home and a home down the street started running a business, any type of business and your house drops $100,000 in market value. There are no cheap houses in NH. There are lots of rural properties you could run a business like this at but not in the southern half of the state. Any business requires due diligence to be successful. She obviously didn't do any.

Hugs,

Freta

It's worse than her just advertising the presence of the park. She was adveritsing trips to the park, walking the trails through the woods, and visits to the nearby beach. Even after removing the trips to the park, and walking the trails, she was still advertising playing in her yard and on her front porch. 

[munkey]

perhaps this person in NH needs to move to

Denver

[Babypants]

This woman could be in some legal trouble.  Her application to the State for a business permit and tax ID number was rejected, and yet she appears to have started the business anyway.  Well, New Hampshire has a quirky income tax-- it is only dividend and interest income that is personally taxed, not wages.  So, she has no way to pay taxes on her earnings next year!

NH's revenue stream is heavily dependent on sales and property taxes, both being among the highest in the country.  The moment the City fathers saw that permitting this business to run in an R-1 district would cause surrounding property values to take a hit, it was doomed.  Between 2008 and 2011, property values in my community collapsed (my home went from being appraised at $235K to $141K), and we had to lay off municipal staff and cut community services, including closing the community center.  The school district took a comparable hit to its budget.  Before it was all over, we had to merge our fire department with two others whose communities were in similar financial trouble.

There's a reason why people hire attorneys and accountants.  She was from Maine, and would have been well advised to do so.   

[FretaBWet]

New Hampshire has no state or local sales taxes and no state income taxes on wages. It relies mostly on property taxes and a tax on business profits. There are also no private liquor stores in the state, they are owned by the state and all the profits go to the general fund. Beer and wine can be sold at supermarkets and convenience stores but the profit they make is taxed. There is also a tax on dividends and interest income. This is a truly genius system because every other state has a high sales tax so pretty much everyone within easy driving distance to NH shops there. They drive there for grocery shopping and everything else. Because the state owns a monopoly on the liquor stores, they can undercut the prices of the stores in the surrounding states. When you factor in the savings on the price plus the savings on the sales tax it's a no Brainerd. Also because the stores are owned by the state, they have huge liquor stores at rest areas on the major highways to make it convenient for tourists heading home to fill their trunk with bargain booze. I had seen an article online about states ranked in order of liquor consumption on a per capita basis and NH was near the top but the statistic is badly skewed because much of the sales go right out of state.

Hugs,

Freta

[Babypants]

1 hour ago, FretaBWet said:

New Hampshire has no state or local sales taxes

Actually, it has a steep sales tax, which is selectively imposed in the same way that many other states do it.  The tax on hotel rooms, alcoholic beverages, and restaurant dining is 8.5%.  This generates large sums, because NH is deservedly a tourism mecca virtually year around.

[FretaBWet]

New Hampshire has no state or local sales taxes and no state income taxes on wages. It relies mostly on property taxes and a tax on business profits. There are also no private liquor stores in the state, they are owned by the state and all the profits go to the general fund. Beer and wine can be sold at supermarkets and convenience stores but the profit they make is taxed. There is also a tax on dividends and interest income. There are also rooms and meals taxes  so eating out drinking in bars or staying in hotels also brings in a lot of out of state dollars. This is a truly genius system because every other state abuting NH has a high sales tax so pretty much everyone within easy driving distance to NH shops there. They drive there for grocery shopping and everything else. Because the state owns a monopoly on the liquor stores, they can undercut the prices of the stores in the surrounding states. When you factor in the savings on the price plus the savings on the sales tax it's a no Brainer. Also because the stores are owned by the state, they have huge liquor stores at rest areas on the major highways to make it convenient for tourists heading home to fill their trunk with bargain booze. I had seen an article online about states ranked in order of liquor consumption on a per capita basis and NH was near the top but the statistic is badly skewed because much of the sales go right out of state.

Hugs,

Freta

[ValentinesStuff]

12 minutes ago, Babypants said:

Actually, it has a steep sales tax, which is selectively imposed in the same way that many other states do it.  The tax on hotel rooms, alcoholic beverages, and restaurant dining is 8.5%.  This generates large sums, because NH is deservedly a tourism mecca virtually year around.

8.5% sales tax is not what I would consider high. As a tax on hotel rooms it's actually fairly low. St. Louis has a 22% hotel room tax. My local sales tax is 9%, hotel tax is 12.5%.

[Babypants]

13 minutes ago, ValentinesStuff said:

St. Louis has a 22% hotel room tax

The occupancy tax in Missouri is 4.225%.  What you have to be careful of when traveling is the additional taxes that some states allow municipalities and other entities to tack on.  St. Louis county hits you with two additional tourism taxes, one for 3.5% and the other for 3.75%.  

Doing mail order business in Minnesota is a nightmare because you have to calculate the sales tax for every single municipality in the state.

[ValentinesStuff]

11 minutes ago, Babypants said:

The occupancy tax in Missouri is 4.225%.  What you have to be careful of when traveling is the additional taxes that some states allow municipalities and other entities to tack on.  St. Louis county hits you with two additional tourism taxes, one for 3.5% and the other for 3.75%.  

Doing mail order business in Minnesota is a nightmare because you have to calculate the sales tax for every single municipality in the state.

Same in Illinois, although not every municipality has a sales tax. Although I just went to buy a new mattress and the site wanted to charge me sales tax based upon my zip code. The village has a sales tax, but I don't live within its limits. I got it cheaper, no tax or shipping, from Amazon.

[FretaBWet]

Just saw this tonight.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/04/24/the-diaper-spa-owner-fined-new-hampshire-board-of-medicine/%3famp=1

Hugs,

Freta

[~Brian~]

1 hour ago, FretaBWet said:

Just saw this tonight.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/04/24/the-diaper-spa-owner-fined-new-hampshire-board-of-medicine/%3famp=1

Hugs,

Freta

@FretaBWet

Looks like the "Diaper Spa" has run afoul of the Board of Medicine in New Hampshire:  One thing i have learned about the Vermont State Boards that deal with licensing is that they take a DIM view of claiming something that you are NOT, and they WILL sanction you if you are doing something against the Laws and Rules of your profession.  If she is somehow stating that what she is doing is providing things is medical in nature, or she is practicing medicine without a license in New Hampshire, then she will have to deal with the consequences of that.

I remember one time when I was working with the Office of Professional Regulation, and we had a Licensee that let her License LAPSE:  She was running her Cosmetology Shop and personal Cosmetology License on an expired license.  When she tried to RENEW it, my boss ran it, and then found it EXPIRED.  Normally, you just pay your License Fees for the Licenses (1 shop, 1 cosmetology), and they send you a renewed license for BOTH.

HOWEVER:  If you let your license LAPSE for a specific time period, and you don't renew it within the grace period, once it lapses and passes that point (I think maybe 1 year, but not sure). You CAN renew, but you have to pay your FEES and RETAKE all your practicals as if you were a new applicant!

That Day I got a call from this licensee, she wanted to renew BOTH, but after my boss logged into the system, and ran her licenses, they had been expired for so LONG that I was informed that she would have to retake the practical test for her profession.  I was asked to relay that information:  I DID! 

The Licensee was PISSED, and was YELLING at me, so I had to have my boss take the call and tell her that what I said was according to the Laws and Rules, and my boss did NOT back down:  She had to retake the practical, and she was NOT happy:  I told her that she had to do that, and that I was doing things that I was supposed to do, and NOT to shoot the messenger.  If the law says you have to do something, the law says what it says!

I think the owner of this spa is gonna have more trouble then just trying to OPEN the Spa in the State of New Hampshire:  You DON'T Want to mess with the law or say something that that you are NOT, or elude to the fact that you are something you are NOT by representing you are providing services that the medical board has jurisdiction over.

I think, that if she was a Licensed Individual in New Hampshire, then she may be OK, but if the medical board FINED her $10,000, she must have done something to Irk them.  That is within their pervue to make decision like this.

Brian 

[littlebopeeper]

Didn't she get turned down when she applied for a business license from the state?  Then go ahead and begin operating without a license?

[ValentinesStuff]

I'm beginning to wonder how she got her MD and passed all those tests and licensing processes.

[Nat]

If she had ran this as an adult kink service, I doubt she would have found herself fined that much. People play with fire by trying to redefine ABDL by arguing it's not a kink. Well if it isn't, then you would have to involve minors. People do use kinks for trauma and for emotional reasons and mental reasons. 

There have been plenty of other mommies and ABDLs that ran a ABDL nursery in their home just fine but they didn't pose as a therapy service or as a mental health service. 

This also reminds me of My Inner Baby getting into some legal trouble as well so they had to shut down their retail store because they were posing it as a medical store and the city had a rule about where sex shops could be opened at. They decided to fight against it and obviously lost because they have not opened their shop and Bing says it's permanently closed but their website is still open. They are still fighting it according to their linktree links. 

Don't play with fire mmkay. 

[Babypants]

10 hours ago, ValentinesStuff said:

I'm beginning to wonder how she got her MD and passed all those tests and licensing processes.

She was licensed to practice medicine in Maine, not NH.  These licenses do not transmit across state lines, any more than a license to practice law in one state permits you to practice it in another.  

13 minutes ago, Nat said:

If she had ran this as an adult kink service, I doubt she would have found herself fined that much.

Again, she was hit hard because she does not have a license to practice medicine in NH.  The business was never going to fly because she was never going to get a Special Use Permit to operate this business in an R-1 district.  

[ValentinesStuff]

3 hours ago, Babypants said:

She was licensed to practice medicine in Maine, not NH.  These licenses do not transmit across state lines, any more than a license to practice law in one state permits you to practice it in another.  

Yes, and that's one thing she should have learned in all her schooling. Along with all the other stuff she is getting in trouble over. 

[diapered charles]

I hope this person can get their business up and running. People fear what they do not understand. $10,000 is a steep fine though. As a CPA myself, I understand how protective professional boards are about protecting their respective professions.