I am looking for public records on store fronts in New York City. 
More specifically, the ability to search for the name of the owner of
the store having only the name and address of the storefront.  It is
not necessarily a Corporation or LLC, so I don't believe the Better
Business Bureau would be of much help.  Stores need to have some sort
of retail licensing or something similar, so I would imagine that
public records do exist, where would I find them?  Are they available
on the internet?  If not, what agency do I call, what is their website
address and phone number.  I am only looking for this within NYC. 
Thanks.

Businesses that are not corporations and are not doing business under
the real name of the owner (Joe Smith) are required to file a d.b.a
(doing business as) form with the county clerk (for example Joe Smith
doing business as Joe's Plumbing). In NYC, a d.b.a is also called a
business certificate. This page:

NYC.gov
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dbs/html/tools01.html

can give you all the information that you need to contact the various
county clerk offices that make up NYC.

Summarized:
BRONX 851 Grand Concourse, Rm. 118, Bronx, NY 10451 718-590-3642
KINGS (BKLYN) 360 Adams Street, Rm. 189, Brooklyn, NY 11201
718-443-8012
MANHATTAN NYS Supreme Ct. Bldg., Rm 109, 60 Centre Street, NY, NY
10007 212-374-8314
QUEENS Attn: Cert/Dept, 88-11 Sutphin Blvd., Rm 106, Jamaica, NY 11435
718-520-3704
RICHMOND (SI) RM 103, 18 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, NY 10301
718-390-5389

How easily you will be able to get this information is another
story... but these are the people that have it.

Best Regards,

krobert-ga

Search Strategy:
manhattan county clerk office

---

Clarification of Answer by krobert-ga on 02 Jan 2003 07:27 PST

DBA simply means "doing business as".  It's not so that people can use
a "false name", just an "assumed name". That way, Joe Smith does
business as Joe's Plumbing.  If you have a storefront that's named
"Martha Stewart" I would say that you have a pretty good lead to who's
running the show. Alternatively, if the storefront is named "Yan's
Cooking Utensils" you could look it up at the county clerk's office
and find out that Yan Wong owns it.

The "d.b.a" is the name of the business, not the name of the owner. If
the owner wanted to change her name, she would file forms to change
her name.  If she owned a business that was under a d.b.a, she would
have to refile the d.b.a to show that now the business is owned by
"XXX XXX".

A business consultant I know would put it as this:

A d.b.a is filed so that if some guys gets run over by a "Wharf
Fisheries" truck, his lawyer could check with the county clerk and see
that it's owned by Bob Jones... now he has a real person to sue.

I hope this clarification helps.

krobert-ga

Im not exactly sure what a DBA is.  Is this so people can open a store
front under false names?  Well, what if the person IS doing business
under their real name (thus dont have to file a DBA)...how would I
find their name using the name of the storefront or address of the
store?  At any rate, you steered me in the right direction.  Thanks.