Sisters In The Struggle: I'm About To Lose My Business

My Savvy Sisters in the Struggle: Are you in a situation that you feel you can not handle alone? Do you need My Savvy Sisters to offer guidance, a helping hand or an encouraging word? Write in to editorial@MySavvySisters.Com to submit your plea for help. All letters will be read. Selected letters will be posted. We wish you the best of luck and we hope we can be the connection you need.

Dear Sisters In The Struggle,

My name is Sara Beth Williams. I own a carriage company in Nashville TN. I’ve been in business since 2003. I’ve only been granted one permit when all carriage owners have two permits or more and they are all men. It’s been eight years and I’ve seen 3 companies go out of business and there were 10 permits voided and not even one of those permits were even granted to me for equal opportunity. The governor has minority non discrimination statements all over their website of tn.gov. I have three horses and just recently found a place to live and boarding for my horses due to the flood last year.

This year I hired a man that fronted me the money for my liability insurance in return for using his carriage in town so that I could afford to put the new light requirements on per our metro government. I paid this man 60 percent to operate my business so that I could make extra money to buy a new carriage. This man stole from me every night. I caught him not writing all the rides down and have proof that he wrote 12 rides.

When I caught this man stealing he all of a sudden comes up with $890.00 which is equivalent to 28 rides. My supposed friend won’t testify in court as a witness because she is all into herself and doesn’t want to get involved. I told the man that I caught him stealing on several occasions and that he very well paid himself back for the use of his carriage. He then turned around and called my insurance company and demanded the check he wrote refunded and caused my insurance to lapse. The insurance company that handled my policy canceled my insurance due to non-payment without my knowledge. The insurance company said they didn’t want to get sued for the check from the man’s so called attorneys phone call to the insurance company. There was no name of the so called attorney that made that call. I was downtown operating my carriage on June 2nd in the evening and didn’t work Friday because of fireworks and was notified by the taxi board that I was in operation without insurance. I had no knowledge of this.

On Friday June 3rd, I received a phone call from the director of the taxi board to suspend my operation due to cancelation of insurance. The taxi board called me at 4:20pm that afternoon when they closed at 4:25pm in the afternoon. There was nothing I could do to fix the problem. I had no money because thank God I paid all my bills ahead of time. Well now I don’t have the down payment for insurance. I started to panic. I rode out the weekend trying to get help when all of the sudden my radiator blew up on my truck and had to borrow the money from my parents. They are on fixed income. Now I missed out on a whole week of income from the CMA festival where I could’ve made $3000.00 to cover my bills. Now I have $17.00 to my name so I contacted an attorney with no money (she said I have a case). On Monday June 6th My dad calls me and says I received a certified letter from taxi board for a disciplinary hearing before the commission because I was operating my carriage without insurance and they are calling it negligent.

The taxi board is calling it negligence for having passengers in my carriage and operating without insurance. The director also said that I could very well lose my license before the board. I asked the director of the taxi board how he knew I was operating that day and he said they took pictures for proof. I then thought about my permit situation and immediately started thinking they knew about my insurance before I did and contacted me a day later of my cancelation of insurance. Why would they try and get proof before contacting me? Why would they send a letter of discipline on Monday and not even mention it on the Friday before?

Now you know why I’m stressing this whole thing. I’ve worked so hard and struggled over these eight years of business and finally was able to get on my feet from the flood last year. I have prayed like you would not believe. I know God gave me these horses to do this business. I can’t get a loan from the bank because of the devastation from the flood last year.

Now I feel like I have no one to turn to for help. I have no money due to this being my only source of income. I have to pay my parents back for the radiator and pay my truck note by Wednesday. I can still operate until the hearing. I have an attorney with no way to pay. The attorney knows this and I don’t even have the fuel to even get there. I love my horses and have never been in trouble with the board before. I feel like I’m being bullied by the taxi board director and the other carriage companies. I have people calling me all the time saying my permit has been pulled when I had not been informed of that yet.

How do these carriage companies that are all men know this? I need help in a very big way. I even tried e-mailing Ellen Degeneres with no response on facebook. I feel like such a little person in a big world with no one even acknowledging my cry for help. I will take a deep breath and relax like you said and pray for a miracle. I keep hoping my phone will ring but it doesn’t. I do pray, believe, and know that this is God’s plan for me because of my love for horses. God would not have given me two identical horses to pull together at 2yrs old in a big city like this without his divine help. Thank you for listening to my situation and hope to hear from you. Thank you so much for taking my call this evening. I thank God that I found your site and phone number.

For My Savvy Sisters: Do you have any advice or assistance for Sara? Please comment and offer any help you may have. Thank you.

Posted in: Sisters In The Struggle