Perry sends warning to three hotels

The City Council held public hearings Tuesday on whether to revoke the business licenses of three hotels because of unpaid sales taxes.

While the council chose not to take that step, two of the motels were put on notice as repeat offenders that failing to pay the taxes again will lead to automatic revocation.

City Manager Lee Gilmour said Howard Johnson Inn, Ramada Inn and Days Inn did not pay the hotel/motel tax from January through April. Ramada Inn and Days Inn are owned by the same person.

The taxes, which are charged to travelers as part of the room rate, are supposed to be paid monthly.

After notices were sent to the owners that public hearings would be held to revoke their business licenses, both came in and paid up. However, that did not stop the public hearings, Gilmour said.

Gilmour said Howard Johnson was a first-time offender and told council a warning might be sufficient. However, he said the city had the same problem with the other two hotels last year.

He asked that the licenses either be revoked or that the owner be put on notice that the next offense would mean an automatic revocation with no public hearing.

When the issue was discussed in the pre-council meeting, it seemed there might be a chance the council would go ahead and revoke the license. That would have shut the hotels down.

“I’m tired of being jerked around and I would be comfortable if we went ahead and revoked it,” Councilman Robert Jones said.

Others said it wasn’t fair to owners who paid the taxes on time to allow others to slide and then pay up only when threatened with revocation.

Rajesh Mir said in the public hearing that he is the manager of the Ramada Inn and the Days Inn and his mother is the owner.

He said they had “fallen on hard times” and would “try our best” to keep the taxes paid in the future.

The council then voted to warn Howard Johnson it would be brought before another public hearing in the future if taxes were not paid. The Howard Johnson owner was not at the meeting.

The council voted to warn the owner of the Ramada and Days Inn that those licenses would be automatically revoked if taxes are not paid within 30 days of the due date. The motion gives Gilmour the authority to do that without consulting the mayor or council.

Mir said afterward that he did not agree with that decision because they had paid what they owed.

This story was originally published July 19, 2016 at 8:16 PM with the headline "Perry sends warning to three hotels."