Here’s how VoiceofSanDiego.org’s Liam Dillon described the San Diego hoteliers’ efforts to prevent San Diegans for Open Government from challenging the illegality of the 2% Tourism Marketing District tax that was put before hoteliers rather than voters in 2012:
“San Diego Superior Court Judge Joel Wohlfeil made a big decision in recent days over the fate of more than $1 billion in projected tax dollars.
“For more than three years, activist attorney Cory Briggs has been challenging the Tourism Marketing District, which charges a 2 percent fee on visitors’ hotel bills on top of the city’s regular hotel-room tax. Briggs says the district’s fee is exactly the same as a tax and therefore should have been voted on by the public, not the hotel industry. He and other lawyers won a similar argument to throw out the financing plan for the Convention Center expansion.
“The hotel industry, however, argued that Briggs shouldn’t even be allowed to challenge the tourism district. They said that his clients, nonprofit San Diegans for Open Government, were a sham and simply an alter ego of Briggs.
“Wohlfeil rejected that argument, saying that San Diegans for Open Government passed the ‘microscopic’ examination by the hotel industry. The case will now move to a trial on whether the 2 percent fee is a tax later this year.
“If you want to understand why this is all so significant, check out the statement given to inewsource by tourism district chairman and hotelier Bill Evans after the ruling: ‘This case is vital to our industry and to our city,’ he wrote. ‘As a result, we have pursued every legal avenue available to keep this case from going to trial.’
“Translation: This money is so important to the hoteliers that they did everything they could to destroy their opponent before they actually had to argue it was legal.”
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