Hackensack Business and Commercial Law Blog

Often the butt of jokes and even more often the cause of frustration, on-street parking in New York City is a major issue. Parking meters brought in $149 million in the city's last fiscal year, but the system is badly in need of an update. Officials are looking into striking a contract with a private company to manage the meters without losing sight of land use concerns and the unfortunate experiences of other cities.

There is a reason property is so expensive in the city, particularly in Manhattan: There isn't much of it. As one urbanist explains it, the city uses parking meters to manage access to one of its most precious assets, the real estate along the curb.

For many years, wine merchants in New Jersey were not able to offer full service to their customers. A law that barred them from directly shipping merchandise is a thing of the past, as of May 1. Industry insiders say this is a business opportunity few merchants will pass up, though developing new policies, procedures and contracts may take some time.

Wineries are increasingly taking advantage of the changed legal environment by setting themselves up to sell New Jersey wines online at the click of a mouse. Prior to the change, both in-state and out-of-state customers were required to purchase their New Jersey wines by using middleman wholesale distributors.

Bergen County held its first-ever hockey tournament in January, and, by all accounts, the event was a success. For some New Jersey hockey fans, though, the NHL's Winter Classic wasn't such a success. In fact, season ticketholders have filed a class action lawsuit against the owner of the host team for the 2012 game. They claim the team breached its contract with them by excluding the Winter Classic from the season ticket package.

Unlike an all-star game, the Winter Classic is a regular season hockey game played outdoors. It's usually held around New Year's Day. This year, the host team, the Philadelphia Flyers, played the New York Rangers. Both teams have particularly enthusiastic fan bases.

We are wrapping up our discussion of New Jersey's franchise restaurant business climate. The state has been among the slowest to embrace chain restaurants for a number of reasons. In our last post, we were talking about land prices in the state and the fact that franchisees could easily find that land was too expensive.

If they can afford the land, though, they have to remember that owning real estate means paying real estate taxes, and owning a business means paying corporate taxes. The state also has a reputation for being tightly bound in red tape.

We are continuing our discussion of chain restaurants in New Jersey. The percent of restaurants that are franchises is among the lowest in the country. It isn't that we don't have enough people -- both New Jersey and Bergen County are densely populated -- it's a combination of past and present factors.

As we said in our last post, the development of the interstate system took a different turn here, so the franchises didn't have the same opportunities that they had in other, interstate-friendlier states. The Interstate 95 Gap between Trenton and New Brunswick is just one example of how highways evolved in New Jersey.

Take a minute to think about all the restaurants, from fast food to fine dining establishments, in your neighborhood. Do the local places outnumber the chains? Statistically, they should. New Jersey has fewer chain restaurants -- that is, restaurants with 10 or more locations -- than most states. Just 24.49 percent of the state's restaurants are chains, or franchises; that puts us in 48th place.

Franchisors tend to shy away from New Jersey, and that doesn't quite make sense. The state has plenty of people: 1,189 inhabitants per square mile. Bergen County is among the most populous counties, with 3,868 inhabitants per square mile. And, as one broker put it, all those people "gotta eat." In terms of consumers, it would be hard to find a better market.

New Jersey residents may be familiar with the popular music group the Black Eyed Peas, who perform in venues throughout the country, including New Jersey.

Now, the group's guitarist, along with another client, a television executive, is suing the 41-year-old manager for breach of contract.

The litigation stems from the group's discovery that their business manager failed to file federal and state tax returns for several years. In fact, the business manager has admitted that he did not file the necessary documents. Though the business manager has an accounting degree, it is also alleged that he failed to keep accounting ledgers on the Peas' income and had hidden or lost millions of dollars.

In fact in a deposition, the business manager did testify that he failed to file these necessary documents during the time when the popularity of the band exploded earning them tens of millions of dollars. However, he described his non-action as an inadvertent oversight, explaining that he was simply overwhelmed by his sudden success.

The Jimmy John's fast-food franchise chain has more than 1,400 retail stores throughout the country, including in New Jersey. The owners of 10 Jimmy John's franchises in the Midwest were recently found to have committed unfair labor practices by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The ruling stemmed from reports that several employees were fired after complaining about the owner's sick-leave policy.

The fast food chain allegedly fired six employees and sent written warnings to three other employees for complaining about the franchise's sick-leave policy in public posters criticizing the company's policy. The employees used a poster advertisement to alert the public that, because employees were not paid for sick days and were required to show up to work even if they were sick, food from Jimmy John's could be contaminated.