Court Rules Against Pomona’s Tax on Long-Term Hotel Stays

The city must stop charging a “transient tax” to long-term hotel residents, the state Court of Appeal has ruled in a decision hailed this week as a victory for homeless and poor people.

The court on Aug. 30 declared unconstitutional the city’s tax on people who live in hotels and other temporary housing for extended lengths of time.

In addition to declaring the tax unconstitutional, the appellate court said the Pomona law was too vague for people of average intelligence to understand.

A lawsuit challenging the tax was filed in 1988 by three residents of residential hotels or rooming houses.

Chris Brancart, an attorney representing the three, said the tax unfairly targeted low-income people: “Plain and simple, it was a poor tax, taking money away from the people who could least afford to pay.”

The tax, originally imposed in 1965, at first applied only to people who stayed in temporary housing for less than 30 days. Hotel operators are taxed 8% per resident to help cover city expenses such as road maintenance, police service and park upkeep--a cost they add to the rent they charge.

But in 1987, the city amended the tax by removing the 30-day limit. That change made all residents of Pomona hotels subject to the fee, including those who live in such facilities permanently. Hotel residents who stay fewer than 30 days are unaffected by the court decision.

After the lawsuit was dismissed in Pomona Superior Court in 1988, Brancart took the case to the Court of Appeal.

The appellate court opinion found that Pomona, by taxing people who live permanently in hotels but not taxing others who live on property they do not own--such as apartment dwellers--had failed to meet federal and state equal protection requirements.

Also, the court said, the tax violates due process requirements because its wording--particularly definitions of the terms hotel and transient-- are “too vague to be understood and applied by persons of common intelligence.”

Pat Irish, executive director of the Pomona Valley Council of Churches, said the decision is a victory, if only a small one, for the city’s poor.

“It is a good thing,” said Irish, whose organization runs a homeless family shelter in Pomona.

She said that as many as 50% of Pomona residents fall below the poverty line, and, for many of them, inexpensive residential hotels offer the only viable alternative to homelessness.

Pomona City Atty. Arnold Glasman said the city is disappointed with the Court of Appeal decision and may challenge it in the Supreme Court or may simply rewrite the law. City officials said this week that it is unclear whether the city will continue to collect the tax while an appeal is pending.

Glasman said the city is not trying to make life difficult for long-term hotel residents but is seeking just payment for city services.Permanent hotel residents should pay the fee because “they’re using the same services over a long period of time.”