GREENSBORO, N.C. — During Wednesday's State of the City Address, Mayor Nancy Vaughan said she plans to push for a prepared food tax again. Business owners opposed the idea last year.
We learned why the city is pushing for it again and got a local reaction.
Mayor Vaughan said this tax will help pay for the maintenance of recreation and entertainment buildings and the creation of new ones.
Here's a breakdown of what this may look like day to day: This prepared food tax is a 1% tax on food prepared in a restaurant. So, if you buy an almost 2-dollar coffee, you'll owe 2 cents in taxes. If you spend 25 dollars on a steak, you'll owe around 0.25 cents.
This is all a part of the city's mission to become a hub for recreation and entertainment as well as a capital for youth sports.
"I think that the majority of council knows that we have to find other ways to finance these facilities, that we can't do it on the backs of the property taxpayers and when you see the number of people that we have coming into our community to use our facilities, it makes sense that we need to find a way to make them help us pay," Mayor Vaughan said.
Doug Higgons, Senior Vice President of Oak View Group, which is the group taking over the Tanger Center and Greensboro Coliseum, said this tax has been beneficial in other North Carolina cities.
"We manage facilities in Cumberland County, North Carolina, or where Fayetteville is, and they use that tax to open their coliseum back in the late 90's and it generates close to 10 million dollars a year. That goes back directly into those facilities," Higgons said.
On the other hand, local business owners like Juan Cirino of Pangaea Bistro & Bar, said it's hard enough getting folks in the door regardless, adding an additional tax could make that even harder for local restaurants.
"We love Tanger center, we love the shows, we love everything but why are our people, our daily consumers having to pay for that? Paying for things we use maybe once a year, that we're actually paying a ticket for. I don't think it's fair for the consumer," Cirino said.
This proposal is only being talked about right now. In order to pass it would have to go through North Carolina's General Assembly. Mayor Vaughan said she does not know when council plans to take it to state law makers.