ANAHEIM : Hotel Appealing Fee for Late Tax Payment

The Anaheim Hilton and Towers is looking to City Hall for a little forgiveness--$34,121.98 worth, to be exact.

The hotel is appealing the $34,000 late fee assessed by the city for missing the deadline for payment of city hotel tax receipts by two days.

City Treasury Manager William Sell said the late fee was charged after the city received payment for November tax receipts, due Dec. 31, 1990, on Jan. 2. The late fee represents 10% of the November payment.

“We’ve always paid on time,” Hilton General Manager Glenn A. Hale said in a March 19 letter to City Clerk Leonora Sohl, “and to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time we’ve ever been late.”

The hotel’s scheduled appearance before the City Council tonight will be the second time the council has been asked to reconsider the penalty. On Feb. 26, the council denied the appeal and a representative of the hotel did not appear to present its case.

In his letter to the city clerk, Hale said a hotel representative had actually attended the February council meeting but left before the case was discussed because of the “sudden death of her boss and her father’s recent major surgery.”

Last week, the council elected to reconsider the penalty. Forgiveness of the late fee would take four votes from the five-person council.