In the Matter of the Civil Penalty Issued to: Patrick Takuanyi

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A16-0985

In the Matter of the Civil Penalty Issued to:
Patrick Takuanyi

Filed March 6, 2017
Reversed
Ross, Judge

Office of Administrative Hearings
File No. 66-6084-33400

Patrick Takuanyi, South St. Paul, Minnesota (pro se relator)

Tonnetta T. Dove , LeVander , Gillen & Miller , P.A., South St. Paul, Minnesota (for
respondent)

Considered and decided by Jesson, Presiding Judge; Ross, Judge; and Schellhas,
Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
ROSS, Judge
Patrick Takuanyi stored vehicles registered to his former auto-sales business outside
his home after he lost his business licenses and auto dealership. The City of South St. Paul
cited him for storing cars as part of an unregistered home business without a conditional-
use permit. An administrative -law judge (ALJ) upheld the citation . Takuanyi appeals ,
arguing that he was not storing the cars for any home business. Because the city’s ordinance
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prohibits only the storage of property for a gainful home occupation and the city failed to
prove that Takuanyi’s auto storage was associated with any gainful occupation, we reverse.
FACTS
Patrick Takuanyi operated an automobile sales and repair business presumably from
a commercially zoned lot until he lost his business and automobile-dealer licenses in March
2015. Takuanyi relocated his business equipment, supplies, and documents to a
commercial storage unit, but he moved five cars to outside his home in South St. Paul .
Someone complained about the cars to the city. A city code-enforcement officer visited in
March 2016 and found that some of the cars were registered under Takuanyi’s business
name and had dealer or in-transit license plates. The city issued Takuanyi an administrative
citation for storing cars in the furtherance of a home occupation without a conditional-use
permit required to operate a home business.
Takuanyi and the city appeared at a contested administrative hearing in May 2016.
A city planner testified that Takuanyi’s hom e property is zoned “R-1,” which is single-
family residential, and that a conditional -use permit is required to run a home occupation
in an R -1 zone. He explained that the city had not granted Takuany i a conditional -use
permit to run a home occupation. Takuanyi testified that , although the vehicles had been
previously stored at his business property, he never sought a conditional -use permit for a
home occupation after he lost his professional license s because he conducted no business
from his home.
The ALJ observed that the city failed to prove that Takuanyi engaged in any vehicle
sales or business from his home. The city apparently convinced the ALJ, however, that by
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moving the cars that he previously kept on his sales lot to his home , rather than moving
them to some commercial storage facility, T akuanyi must be saving his company money.
This theoretical savings, according to the city, made the car s torage a “gainful” home-
occupation activity. The ALJ ordered Takuanyi to pay a $200 fine and a $100 hearing fee.
Takuanyi appeals for our certiorari review.
D E C I S I O N
Takuanyi argues that the ALJ erred by holding that storing vehicles on his property
constituted an unauthorized home occupation under the city’s ordinance . On certiorari
review, we limit questions affecting the merits of a controversy to whether the challenged
determination was arbitrary, oppressive, unreasonable, fraudulent, made under an
erroneous theory of law, or witho ut evidentiary support. See Staeheli v. City of St. Paul ,
732 N.W.2d 298, 303 (Minn. App. 2007). We will not retry facts or make credibility
determinations, and we will affirm “if the lower tribunal furnished any legal and substantial
basis for the action taken.” Id. (quotation omitted).
Takuanyi challenges the ALJ’s legal basis for upholding the administrative
violation. He argues that his conduct did not amount to operating a home occupation under
the ordinance. The interpretation and application of an ordinance is a question of law that
we review de novo. Cannon v. Minneapolis Police Dep’t , 783 N.W.2d 182, 192 (Minn.
App. 2010). We apply the same rules to interpret city ordinances that we apply to interpret
statutes. Id. at 192–93. We therefore first determine whether the language is subject to only
one reasonable interpretation. Id. at 193. If it is, we will apply the unambiguous text. Id.
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The city’s ordinance prohibits South St. Paul residents from operating home
occupations in areas zoned “R -1 single-family district” without a conditional -use permit.
South St. Paul, Minn. , Code of Ordinances § 118 -121(b)(6) (2016). The city’s ordinance
defines a home occupation as “any gainful occupation or profession engage d in by the
occupant only of a dwelling when carried on within a dwelling unit and not in any accessory
building.” South St. Paul, Minn. , Code of Ordinances § 118-8(c) (2016). The ordinance
does not define “gainful,” but the meaning of that term controls the outcome here.
“Gainful” commonly mean s “profitable.” The American Heritage College
Dictionary 556 (3rd ed. 1993). The Oxford English Dictionary traces “gainful” back to the
middle 1500s and a Middle French word associated with profit, advantage, and inc rease,
and it concludes that the modern understanding similarly means “leading to pecuniary gain;
lucrative, remunerative .” See 6 Oxford English Dictionary 311, 314 (2d ed. 1991). So
“gainful” had been understood to refer to e conomic revenue or pecuniary increase long
before South St. Paul enacted its ordinances. We therefore apply this common meaning.
Applying the common meaning of “gainful” leads us to reverse because, without
dispute, the city failed to prove that Takuanyi engaged in his car-storage activity to generate
any revenue at all. The cars were not being stored to further a “home occupation.”
We are wholly unconvinced otherwise by the city’s argument that Takuanyi’s home-
storage activity was “gainful” in the sense that it saved him the cost of storing the cars at
some commercial facility. The city did not establish as a matter of fact that Takuanyi would
have incurred any cost by storing the cars elsewhere; for all the record shows, Takuanyi
might possess some other property where he could have stored the cars without cost. More
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important to our holding, as a matter of law and language, the city offers no support for the
novel proposition that one participates in a “gainful” occupation through an activity that
merely prevents cost rather than generates revenue. Does an Uber driver who lives in South
St. Paul engage in an unauthorized “gainful” home occupation every time she parks in her
driveway? Do es a farmers’ market vendor violate the ordinance by keeping boxes of
inventory in her garage? What about the business owner who lunches at home to save the
business the expense of his eating out? These are activities that might incur a business cost
if they are done away from home. But they are “gainful” occupational activities only under
a strained accounting scheme that is not suggested by the ordinance. And pushing the city’s
argument further from reason, unlike these hypothetical examples, Takuanyi was no longer
even engaging in business activity anywhere. So assuming we were tempted to entertain
the city’s notion that his avoiding storage costs made his home storage a “gainful” activity,
any cost avoidance benefited Takuanyi personally, not his then-defunct business.
We do not suggest that a city cannot regulate or prohibit the storage of cars to
prevent blight, avoid hazards, or further some other governmental interest. See, e.g., State
v. Vasko, ___ N.W.2d ___, ___, 2017 WL 239945, at *1 (Minn. Jan. 18, 2017) (considering
violation of city ordinance prohibiting blight conditions, including open storage of
unregistered or inoperative motor vehicles); City of Burnsville v. Brastad, 354 N.W.2d 85,
86–87 (Minn. App. 1984) (affirming violation of city ordinance prohibiting outside storage
of waste, debris, refuse, garbage, and construction material in residential area). But the city
did not charge Takuanyi under an anti-nuisance or similar ordinance. We simply hold that
Takuanyi’s storing cars at his home was not a “gainful ” home-occupation activity under
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the city’s home-occupation ordinance. The ALJ’s decision therefore rests on an erroneous
theory of law.
Reversed.