Apple expected to bring $200k to city

By RAY ESTRADA — May 27, 2009

Public records indicate the new Apple computer store in Santa Barbara is expected to generate some $200,000 in sales tax revenue for the city in its first year.

The store, which opened May 16 at 928 State St., will generate $20 million in estimated gross sales, according to records at Santa Barbara City Hall. Apple’s city business license application indicates the company paid a $2,650 fee to set up shop.

City Finance Director Bob Pierson said Santa Barbara gets 1 percent of the state’s 8.25 percent sales tax. That means the store could pump about $200,000 into the city’s coffers annually, he said. Because of declining retail sales and a 20 percent drop in the hotel-motel bed tax, the city is facing a projected $10.5 million budget deficit.

Apple officials have declined to comment on what the store means for Santa Barbara’s sagging economic situation. Until late last month, they refused to even admit their 253rd store was being readied for a May opening until just prior to the event, which was delayed a week because of the Jesusito fire. The $1 million store was under renovation for almost a year.

While Apple officials routinely refuse to give the news media much information about their stores, they rarely discuss their revenues.

Santa Barbara officials last week said the revenue information about the Apple store was “proprietary” and refused to release the company’s business license application. A city hall worker said she would “black out” that information on a copy of the application.

In a series of e-mails, City Attorney Stephen Wiley wrote: “In this case, we will be advising Apple in writing that this information will be released to the Daily Sound unless they object, and they succeed in convincing a judge that this is not an appropriate record for public release and they then obtain a court order barring its release.”

Wiley wrote: “Please don’t misunderstand - the city is not making a deal with Apple. It is an accepted and appropriate practice for a city to advise a private party that there has been a public records demand for apparently private information, which they may consider proprietary and confidential or personal.”

To justify withholding the information, Wiley quoted a provision of the state Public Records Act, which says: “Information required from any taxpayer in connection with the collection of local taxes that is received in confidence and the disclosure of the information to other persons would result in unfair competitive disadvantage to the person supplying the information.”

Wiley also wrote: “Presumably, if Apple does not want this particular information released by the city, their lawyers would contact the Daily Sound and the city will just let the Daily Sound and Apple sort this out legally.”

Tom Newton, general counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association, said in a telephone interview, for the city attorney to say “that the Daily Sound and Apple should duke this out is freeping ridiculous.”

In an e-mail, Newton wrote: “If (the city is) asking Apple about it now, the information was not ‘received in confidence’ as required by the limited exemption in (the Public  Records Act), which must be narrowly construed pursuant to Article 1. Section 3 of the (state) Constitution. If it was received in confidence, the city would already have a writing to that effect (e.g., I’m giving you this proprietary info because you promise to keep it confidential).  Absent that, the exemption doesn’t apply.”

Apple retained former city attorney Steve Amerikaner who initially urged the Daily Sound not to publish the information contained in the application. Amerikaner now works with the private firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck in Santa Barbara. On Tuesday, Amerikaner said Apple would not contest release of the application information.

Newton said the California Public Records Act says public records are open to inspection at all times during office hours. The law also says a city can’t delay or obstruct inspection or copying of public records, he said.

Wiley was unavailable for comment this week because he is on a three-week vacation. Assistant City Attorney N. Scott Vincent said he could not comment on the case Tuesday.

However, in a Friday e-mail, Vincent wrote: “I just learned this morning that your copy of the letter (sent to the Daily Sound) mistakenly included an unredacted copy of the Apple, Inc., business license application as an attachment. The disclosure of that document is currently in dispute. Apple, Inc. has informed the city of their intention to protect this information from disclosure.”

Vincent concluded: “In order to avoid additional complications in this dispute, please return the letter unopened.”

The Daily Sound returned the letter.

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: 5/28/2009

Is that expected revenue net? That is, taking into consideration what it will take away from MacMechanic, our longtime local business? The acts of Apple-Amerikaner and city attorneys, as described here, are indeed "freeping ridiculous" although I'd call it "disgusting".

Mac user

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