By Brett Yates
On a voice vote, Pittsfield residents approved a 1% “local option” tax on hotel rooms, restaurant meals, and alcoholic beverages on Town Meeting Day. Business owner Katie Stiles, who runs Vermont Farms Catering with her husband Kevin Lasko, told the Pittsfield Select Board on March 20 that she didn’t hear about it until afterward.
“To us, it feels like yet another hurdle that we have to present to our customers when we’re already struggling to attract them to a place that doesn’t have much in terms of infrastructure,” she said. “It is something that potentially — at least for our business, because we’re dealing with a higher dollar number — could sway people to not come here.”
Stiles seems to be considering her next move.
After news of the tax had reached her, she watched a recording of Pittsfield’s town meeting. During the video, Stiles took note of Selectman A.J. Ruben’s assertion that the board had already discussed the measure with the town’s business community. Last week, an apologetic Ruben admitted that the purported discussion hadn’t happened, explaining that at the time he’d mistakenly believed that another board member had reached out to business owners.
“I wish we would’ve,” Ruben said. “It was a mistake on my part.”
Stiles asked whether the revelation of Ruben’s unwitting misrepresentation could invalidate the vote on the basis that his claim may have swayed townspeople to support the tax under the false belief that the town had consulted local business owners and hadn’t heard any objections. But Chair Ann Kuendig told her that the vote would stand. By Kuendig’s account, only an error on the town’s written warning for the meeting could call the vote’s legality into question.
Ruben also pointed out that Mark Stugart, the owner of the Clear River Inn and Tavern, had attended Pittsfield’s town meeting, where he had spoken against the new tax. Even after hearing this perspective, “the town overwhelmingly voted in favor of it,” Ruben said.
Stugart joined Stiles at the board meeting. There, he objected to the tax’s narrow focus on restaurants and hotels, arguing that other businesses should share the burden. Under Vermont law, a local option tax can also take the form of a sales tax.
“My suggestion would’ve been, let’s do it for everyone,” Stugart said.
Ruben noted that, by targeting rooms, meals, and alcoholic beverages, the town had sought to take aim at tourists specifically. But Stugart disputed the notion that restaurants attract a significantly higher share of out-of-towners than retail establishments do.
Stiles requested details on the process for mounting a petition for a chance to overturn the town’s vote. According to the Vermont Dept. of Taxes, challenging a local option tax requires signatures from 10% of a municipality’s eligible voters.
A Select Board can also refer an article to repeal a local option tax to the Town Meeting Day ballot. In Pittsfield, board members indicated a willingness to reevaluate the tax at the end of the year, based on its impact upon municipal revenues and upon local businesses, and to recommend rescission or expansion.
“October, November is when you should come and talk to us about it,” Selectwoman Joyce Stevens advised Stiles and Stugart.
Stevens owns the Swiss Farm Market. She supported the board’s decision last fall to bring the local option tax to the voters.
“ We discussed it, and I said it wouldn’t be that big of an impact on me and my business,” she recalled.
According to Vermont Public, 2025’s Town Meeting Day saw “at least a dozen” municipalities consider enacting local option taxes, which supplement the state’s existing taxes on consumption. Kuendig described the local option tax as part of an effort to reduce Pittsfield’s reliance on property taxes, alongside the Select Board’s increased focus on winning grants.
“What we’ve been trying to do over the last three years is to diversify our revenue streams,” Kuendig said.
But Stiles observed that the board’s plan wouldn’t work if businesses responded by fleeing town.
“Were we to leave Pittsfield and go to a different place, that property tax burden would then just fall back to people,” Stiles said.
Stiles and Lasko, a chef, moved to Vermont from New York City in 2014 to operate the Pittsfield Original General Store, where they also run a seasonal fine-dining restaurant called the Backroom on Fridays and Saturdays.
