You can get a bike license by mail from the city of Santa Monica. They will be happy to take your $3 and send you a license.

I missed the initial ride organized by Ubrayj02 because I hadn't checked Midnight Ridazz in a while, so my cycling roomie and I decided to take our own trip to the Parker Center downtown to get licenses a few days after Jay's ride.

We got there and were informed they'd just ran out of licenses. I told the officer at the desk that this wasn't acceptable, especially since I didn't want to get a ticket for not having a license. I told him I needed something to demonstrate that I attempted to get a license but couldn't.

He was nice enough to write info on the back of a business card, stating that we'd attempted to get licenses. I just kept this in my wallet.

I called back the next week. No licenses.

Two days after that. No licenses. The guy in charge hadn't walked over to city hall to purchase them yet. (??!?!?!?!?)

Two weeks later, I called and asked if they'd restocked licenses. The officer at the front desk was incredibly annoyed and rude. He just said, "You need to speak with Officer Dobine," and then hung up.

So I called back and asked if he could possibly provide me with the officer's number. He then told me it without pausing in between numbers. I wish I was exaggerating, but he literally spit out the 7 digits so fast that I couldn't even remember the first one.

He hung up before I could say anything.

I called back AGAIN and said I didn't appreciate his attitude while I am trying to follow the law. I asked him to slowly give me the number. This is what he did (phone number isn't real).

Officer: Fine. [Long sigh.] It's three-one-zero.....did you get that or was that too fast?

Me: That's fine.

Officer: Five-five-five......is that too fast too?

Me: Go ahead.

Officer: [Long breath] THREEFOURSOMETHINGSOMETHING [*Click*]

Oh boy. I ended up dialing the number three times before figuring out the last two digits and got ahold of Dobine. There were licenses!

Getting the licenses was ok and somewhat timely. The only thing that sucked was that they had no change, so I had to wander all around the Toy District after 7pm and find change for a $20. Not fun.

Yeah. But I haven't been harassed about a license since then! Go figure.

Brilliant! I have sold a bunch of bikes since opening a bike shop, and I would really like to include the $3 license fee in the cost of every bike.

Auto dealers get a lot of love from cities because of the massive amounts of sales tax they generate. Perhaps bike shops can get some respect by contributing a small chunk of money through these fees?

Now, if only banks would set up bike financing programs ...

And thanks for this series -- the information you've presented so far has been very helpful!