After pushback from event organizers, the Newport City Council shot down a proposed impact fee for special events.
The impact fees were first proposed at the council’s Aug. 13 meeting as a way to mitigate the costs incurred by special events utilizing city resources. The proposed amounts increased with the number of attendees expected for the event, charging small events of less than 100 people a $50 fee per day, while big events of over 7,500 would have paid $4,000 per day.
“I think this proposed fee is short-sighted in the fact that we support the city, we support the services, we have a wonderful partnership,” said Brewer Rowe, the chief operating officer for the International Tennis Hall of Fame, who came forward to speak at the council’s Aug. 27 meeting. “We at the Tennis Hall of Fame spend over $150,000 in property taxes. I think it would be silly to go to the Hall of Fame and to our events that we host that bring in tens of millions of dollars to the city and to the region for a small event fee when we pay for the events that we host.”
Maria Sharapova, Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan took their places Saturday, Aug. 23 in the International Tennis Hall of Fame, an iconic women’s singles player and the most successful men’s doubles team in the sport’s history enshrined in a formal ceremony on the Horseshoe Court.
The increases listed in the proposed fee schedule were not one-to-one with attendance numbers, however. Events of less than 1,000 would have experienced increases for each 250 attendees they added, while larger events would pay increased fees if they added another 1,000 to 3,000 attendees, depending on the tier they were in. The proposed fee schedule also cut the fee in half for nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations.
Newport’s city administration and staff, along with Newport City Council itself, have been seeking ways to get additional revenue from the city’s visitors and booming tourism industry for years, largely to deal with problems associated with the increased summer population, such as maintenance and repairs for its infrastructure and utilities networks. In 2024, the city collaborated with its delegation in the Rhode Island State House to propose House Bill 8132, which would have enabled the city to impose a 9% amusement excise fee on event ticket purchases for organizations that sell over 100,000 tickets annually. That proposal died in committee.
Fans watch Raye perform at the 2025 Newport Jazz Festival.
A similar proposal in 2025, this time at the request of Providence and its delegation, would have allowed any municipality to impose a $2-per-ticket tax on venues that can hold 800 or more patrons. This, too, died in committee.
Rowe was not the only person who spoke out at the Newport City Council committee meeting, either, as Mayor Charles Holder remarked that a large number of people were present specifically to address that item on Aug. 27. Representatives from Newport Classical and Trinity Church also came forward to oppose the measure.
Debra Lingle, a representative from Trinity Church, which hosts a pumpkin patch event each year, said a proposed per diem fee that could amount to $2,000 in additional cost would be “detrimental” for the program.
“I would hope that you can see it doesn’t help the community and the people at large,” Lingle said.
This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Newport City Council rejects plan to raise impact fees for events