My question involves business law in the state of: Georgia
I have been in business for over 5 years in the same county. I am moving into a larger building, and before purchasing this building cleared with planning and zoning that my business could occupy this building. I already have a Certificate of Occupancy and a sales tax license for the property. We have done the renovations with permits in place. Now the county agency, who is in bed with another similar business who would love to see us fail, has stepped in and halted our opening. Although this building was formerly a day care, so all the fire systems, etc are much more than we need for our business, they are forcing us to pay an engineer to draw plans for the building (we already had plans drawn by a contractor), and claim our 4960 square foot building is over 5000 sq feet. (building size has a lot to do with code). They are costing us money, and even sent an inspector from zoning enforcement to tell us we needed to rezone the building. Upon talking to us he realized he had been sent on another wild goose chase ( the county has sent him out to "investigate us" in the past.) He was not happy that they are continuing to harass us. The zoning is correct. The engineer who we are having to pay thousands of dollars to draw up the plans stated, " I don't know why I am here, you have a CO (certificate of occupancy)." You should be able to be up and doing business. " Each day that passes, we are losing money. What can we do to get the county off our backs and stop the harassment?

