City pulls back on “amusements” fee

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The Town Ballroom on Main Street. Photo by Garrett Looker.

The City of Buffalo has backed off from a plan to tax music and other entertainment venues for every event for which they charge admission.

Investigative Post last week broke the story about the city’s effort to collect an “amusements fee” described in an obscure and unevenly applied section of the city code. Music club owners and managers two weeks ago began receiving letters from the city’s Department of Permit & Inspection Services “reminding” them of their obligation to pay the fee — which few of them had previously heard of, let alone paid.

News of the Brown administration’s plan elicited immediate backlash from club owners, patrons and Common Council members, who told Investigative Post they were as surprised by the effort to collect the fee as any of the business owners who called them to complain about it.

Journalist Geoff Kelly spoke of his reporting on The Shredd and Ragan Show. 

“I’m very happy that there’s a pause,” Delaware District Council Member Joel Feroleto told Investigative Post Thursday morning, adding that he first heard about the fee from bar and club owners who called his office for an explanation. 

“Some of my colleagues and I were very concerned for the small business that would have been impacted by this,” he said.

Dwane Hall, owner of the Sportsmen’s Tavern in Black Rock, was also pleased by the news.

“We’re relieved that it’s been pulled back,” Hall told Investigative Post. “It would have been very hard on us. We would have had to change the way we do business.”

Hall and other venue operators told Investigative Post the fee would add tens of thousands of dollars to their costs, which already include  annual licensing fees and property taxes paid to the city, as well as other fees and taxes paid to the state. The cost of the amusements fee would likely be passed on to patrons in the form of higher admission charges, they said.

WKBW was first to report that the Brown administration had “temporarily paused” its plans. On Wednesday city officials informed the venues, once again via letter, that they had “reviewed the ordinance and are looking to make adjustments.”

As currently laid out in the city code, the amusements fee would cost between $55 and $350 for every event and attraction a venue produced, depending on the cost of admission. The fee would be levied on musical and theatrical performances, art exhibits and lectures, carnival rides and roller-skating, and a host of other activities. 

Hall said he expected the fee would add as much as $55,000 to the Sportsmen’s annual costs. Bill Casale, general manager of RiverWorks on the waterfront downtown, said it would cost his operation more than $100,000 each year.

“This came out of nowhere,” said Donny Kutzbach, co-owner of Town Ballroom, a downtown music hall with a 1,000-person capacity. “And it’s absolutely confusing, especially considering what we already pay just to exist.”

Smaller venues, like Nietszche’s in Allentown and Mr. Goodbar in the Elmwood Village, worried the fee would compromise their ability to host small local musical acts, which don’t always command high enough admission prices or draw big enough audiences to cover the cost.

Hall, Casale and other venue owners and managers voiced their concerns to their Council representatives, who in turn put pressure on the Brown administration to reconsider. 

Feroleto, the Delaware District Council member, said that he and several other legislators agreed that if the amusements fee was enforced “as is,” they likely would have voted to change the law when the Council came back into session in September.

Council President Chris Scanlon put out a statement Wednesday evening indicating he supported a pause in the city’s attempt to collect the fee.

“It is absolutely necessary to maintain the crucial partnership between the city and our small businesses, which drives the growth of our vibrant arts and culture scene,” Scanlon wrote on Twitter/X. 

Two state legislators, Assembly Member Jon Rivera and Sen. Sean Ryan, had scheduled a press conference Thursday afternoon to call on the Brown administration to drop its planned enforcement of the amusements fee. 

The letter announcing the “pause” did not put to rest their worries.

“A ‘temporary pause’ can mean a lot and leaves the door open for some other version that still puts a burden on folks,” Rivera said.

The city faces mounting budget deficits, according to analyses by the city comptroller and the state-imposed financial control board. The control board in May identified up to $131 million in potential shortfalls over the next four years. Ryan said the city should “stop trying to put this burden on the backs of small business owners.”

He urged the Brown administration should “permanently scrap this fee.” 

“Buffalo’s looming budget crisis is the product of a city government that has spent years prioritizing quick fixes over responsible fiscal planning,” Ryan said. “Reviving an obscure amusement fee to plug budget gaps is the same type of short-term thinking that got the City into this mess in the first place.”

Rivera and Ryan said the press conference will go ahead at 3 p.m. at the Sportsmen’s Tavern on Amherst Street. 

Hall, the Sportsmen’s owner, told Investigative Post he has reason to hope the pause will be permanent. He said a representative from the mayor’s office told him Wednesday the amusement fee was dead. 

“They told me they put it in a box,” Hall said.

Michael DeGeorge, spokesman for the mayor, did not initially respond to a request for comment. After this story was published, he told Investigative Post the amusements fee was “paused.”

Geoff Kelly