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Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Is this how buying a license will be?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As I stood helplessly at the “sporting goods” counter recently at a Gwinnett County Wal-Mart, I couldn’t help but wonder if this is what the future holds with the new fishing/hunting/boating licensing system the state will implement by year’s end.
My fishing license was about to expire and, with a bass-fishing trip planned to start the next day, I stopped into a Wal-Mart close to home to re-enlist. I figured I’d pick up a license, maybe some offset hooks, and be home in less than a half-hour.
Um, no.
It was nearly an hour just to get someone to turn on the cash register and key in my info. That was only after going to the front of the store three times to tell them what I wanted and that I needed help (that didn’t help) and then flagging down another store employee who eventually found someone who could help.
I was told that nobody works at the sporting goods counter for an entire shift, but instead alternates between that department and the hardware area. I found nobody in either department, by the way.
Then, I had to explain to the person helping me what trout and WMA licenses were.
I wondered, is this how buying a license will be in the new system?
The state announced the new system earlier this year, saying the decade-old current system is antiquated and falling apart, and must be replaced. Contracting with Central Bank, a Missouri data and financial firm that manages similar licensing systems in 21 other states, the state put into motion a new system that will be Internet-based and offer real-time license sales. Real-time data is important in preventing duplicate licensing and blocking sales to those who are not allowed to have a license.
Central Bank will charge an additional fee — call it a handling fee — of at least $2.75 per transaction, but more troubling may be the certainty that there will be far fewer places to walk in and buy a license. Central Bank will contract with the top 20 percent volume sellers in the state to offer in-person sales, leaving many Mom-and-Pop stores out.
Most of those in the top 20 percent are big-box stores like Wal-Mart.
The state says it’s still a work in progress with Central Bank. The exact number of retail outlets there will be once the system goes online (boating licenses by September; hunting/fishing by December) hasn’t been finalized. And, since the new system is web-based, virtually any store with the needed computer equipment may still be able to facilitate sales.
Like the current system you still will be able to purchase licenses from your home computer, which, I suppose, is where all of this is headed anyway.
But know that there will be far fewer than the 1,100 outlets which currently sell licenses in the “old” system.
More than 90 percent of Georgia hunting/fishing/boating enthusiasts buy their licenses in person, while they buy a pack of hooks, new line, or live bait. At small tackle shops, they also can talk to people who know where the fish are biting or spin a story about the guy down the road who bagged a 10-pointer.
At Wal-Mart?
Um, no.
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