North Andover supports meals tax - Tom Duggan - The Valley Patriot, North Andover Massachusetts,

Meals Tax Passes in North Andover
Measure passes by 7 votes second time around

TOM DUGGAN, Valley Patriot Editor

A Special Town Meeting was held in North Andover Tuesday night to revisit the idea of a .75% meals tax on restaurants. The measure was rejected by town meeting earlier this year by seven votes, but passed Tuesday night by the exact same vote total.

The vote was 253 votes in favor and 246 votes against.

North Andover currently does not have a meals tax.

North Andover Selectman Tracey Watson opposed the meals tax and spoke out against the measure Tuesday night. She told the Valley Patriot after Town meeting approved the measure that she was disappointed.

“Absolutely, utterly disappointed,” she said shaking her head after the vote.

“Disappointed in the fact that we are taxing not only one population of our business community, but our most generous population of our business community. And it’s disappointing…”

Watson said she was surprised by the vote total but says this is not the end of this fight in town.

“It lost by seven and now it (has) won by seven. It can be repealed in June. And I am sure that will happen. I am sure the opponents have a fire in their belly to bring it (back up again),” she said.

“I personally, probably will support such an effort. I know what our restaurants do for this community. And they are the base of our business community so many people come to North Andover to go to our restaurants and in return shop in our shops.

So it’s very disappointing but Town meeting is democracy in it’s purist form and I love that! So you win some you lose some and this will not be the end of this issue.”

Anne Sarro, a North Andover resident spoke in favor of the measure “I just want to ask one thing. Andover has a meals tax. Has there ever been a time when you thought about having diner in Andover and you said I’m not going to go because they have a meals tax? I doubt it.”

Selctman Rosemary Smedile, chairman of the board also opposed the measure and told Towm Meeting participants that “this is a tax on food. I don’t think people understand this is a tax on food!)

After the meeting she agreed with Watson telling The Valley Patriot that this measure will be back at the next town meeting.

“I think what citizens don’t understand is that this is a tax on food. It’s on prepared food at the grocery store. It’s on prepared food at the bakeries, on the ice cream stands. It’s a tax on young people and the elderly who often take advantage of those prepared foods. It’s disappointing that tis has gone this way but I think we will closely monitor it. If we see that the restaurant numbers are going down we will make a move to repeal it.

Asked if it was possible to repeal it, Smedile said “yes”. But that she doesn’t believe it can be put on the ballot to be repealed. “It would need to come back to town meeting.”

Opponents of the meals tax also complained loudly at town meeting that Superintendent of Schools Hottel sent out notices home with students last week advocating the meals tax proposal at town meeting. Former Selectman Rick Nardella told the Valley Patriot it was “just plain wrong to use public dollars to campaign for a political issue at town meeting.

Selectman Tracy Watson said that, technically the superintendent hadn’t broken the law but, “certainly this is a violation of the spirit of the law. It is also just bad policy to use public dollars and our school children to campaign for a political issue.”

Dick Valencourt, head of the North Andover Merchants Association said that he and his members opposed the measure but the school spending advocates lined up to support the tax saying that none of the restaurants want this tax.

But supporters of the measure said that surrounding towns like Chelmsford and Andover have a meals tax and the figures show that it has not hurt business for their restaurants, in fact sales actually went up in those communities in the two years since they implemented the tax.

Suporters of the tax said that 100% of the taxes collected will go directly to the town. The State’s Department of Revenue projected an income of $437,000 to the town if the tax was passed.

Former member of the North Andover Finance committee Steve Dawe said after the meeting that the reasoning behind the meals tax was absurd.

“I can’t think of a single worse reason to implement a tax than ‘you wont’ notice it’. It’s why we are in Iraq, less than 1% of the united states is involved in the fighting… you won’t notice it. Horrible!"

Selectman Watson said that people need to show up at town meeting to have their voices heard. “But, what it shows… and I hope people take a lesson from this, is that your vote matters. Your vote counts. So, show up at town meeting.”