OUR PLACE
St. Patrick’s Day is a global celebration of Irish culture and takes place annually on March 17th.
This Friday there will not be a lack of celebrations going on in and around Lake Geneva. This is a holiday devoted to a good bit of holiday drinking and eating which the Irish, and those endemic to the Wisconsin culture, have mastered. Caution is advised, however. Wisconsin has the highest alcohol consumption, by percentage of the population, and also the highest number of drunk driving arrests! Lake Geneva has plenty more to do when it comes to celebrating. The Topsy Turvey Brewery and the Geneva Tap House have live music to enjoy, and a diverse selection of brews. The local drinking establishments, including Magpie’s Den and Pen, Champs Bar and Grill, and Thumbs Up will also have live music, with full on ‘party on’ atmospheres. St Patrick’s Day would not be complete without a traditional Irish meal, however.
You can get corn beef and cabbage and other traditional favorites at Popeye’s on the Lake or head up to The Chapel on the Hill for dinner and a movie. Maybe the best deal of all is at Speedo’s Harborside Grill. A big thick Rueben sandwich with a beer, for ten bucks. There are plenty of other options in and around the area for a great St Patty’s Day celebration, but whatever you choose to do please be safe, or as safe as you can be in whatever condition you may be in. As the Irish often say: “May the wind be always at your back.”
The P.R.A.T. and what’s going on with that referendum.
Rumor has had it that the PRAT tax of .5 percent added to the now five percent sales tax everyone in the Geneva Lake area pays for most merchandise and services. It was rumored, heavily rumored, and those rumors supported by none other than the Lake Geneva City Administrator, that the additional tax would not be applicable to locals. They could be and would be exempt. That actually sounded rational until the Geneva Shore Report got hold of the Department of Revenue’s Publication 403 (5/22).
The publication lays out how the tax might work, who gets taxed and for what. It’s called the Premier Resort Area Tax (the publication). Everyone will pay an additional half a dollar, or fifty cents, for every hundred dollars purchased. Everyone. There are no exemptions, and that makes logical sense when given some thought. How would any retailer, like a gas station, be able to tell if anyone buying products was a local or not? At the voting registration places in the county, locals have to take in utility bills to prove that they are local. That wouldn’t work with retailers.
Basically, this premier resort area tax is nothing but that, or maybe that along with a tax on just about everything bought and sold. There’s no difference to the buyers and sellers between regular sales taxes and this new tax. The referendum, whether voters choose to back or not back it, will determine whether the city proceeds with taxing more, and everyone else who buys anything in Lake Geneva, will get hit with this additional tax.
