NEWPORT BEACH : Restaurant Promotion on Front Burner

A plan by restaurateurs to tax themselves and use the proceeds to promote Newport Beach as a dining spot appears to have the support it needs to proceed.

“It looks like smooth sailing from here,” said Dan Marcheano, owner of the Arches restaurant and president of the newly formed Newport Beach Restaurant Assn.

The City Council will hear public comments Monday on the proposal. If protests are received from business owners who would pay 50% or more of the total assessment, no further action could be taken for one year.

John H. Douglas, the city’s coordinator for improvement districts, said he has received six letters from restaurant owners protesting the proposal, but most of the city’s 450 restaurateurs seem to be in favor of it.

The city now collects about $2 million a year in tax revenue from restaurants. “Obviously, if the restaurants do better, then the city benefits,” Douglas said.

Under the proposal, restaurants would tax themselves roughly the amount of their business licenses, which average $100 a year. Thus, the district would generate about $45,000 annually.

Marcheano said that two restaurant owners who initially objected to the plan “were all for it once I explained it to them. The biggest problem when you are doing something like this is making them understand and aware of what we are doing.”

To accommodate smaller restaurants, the association agreed that establishments with 10 or fewer employees would pay a flat $25 assessment. And bigger restaurants, like the Arches, would pay as much as $500.

Monday’s council meeting is at 7 p.m. in City Hall, 3300 Newport Blvd.