The San Diego City Council recently passed a tax for Segway tour businesses. The regulations require the businesses to get a permit from the city’s risk management department and to pay an operator’s fee of $53. They must also purchase commercial liability insurance of $1 million per incident.
Business owners say this measure will severely impact them due to the increase in the cost of doing business and the loss of revenue associated with the increased price in a competitive market. According to one business owner, Bridgette Bisogno, having to pay more for insurance and compensating the city would put her out of business.
Proponents of the new regulations claim that it will protect the taxpayer. Councilman Scott Sherman said that “having been in business for 27 years, there’s a lot of things that the city has charged me for and I wasn’t happy about, but I had to pay it to stay in business. Our job is protecting the taxpayer here, and I think this is what we need to do.”
The only member who didn’t vote for the tax was Councilwoman Barbara Bry. She claimed it was due to it being unfair that the Segway industry would be directly taxed while the kayak and bicycle industries would not.
The Council is required to vote a second time in order to ratify the tax, but a date has not been set. The Segway tour industry can only hope that the Council changes its mind in the near future.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema
