Sandwich council votes to raise fees on tobacco, video gaming licenses

License and permit fees are on the rise in Sandwich.

At the March 18 Sandwich City Council meeting, the majority of council members voted to increase certain fees. The increases will go into effect May 1, which is when the city’s new fiscal year starts.

That includes the annual fee for a tobacco license, which is increasing from $50 to $300. A store must have a license to sell cigarettes.

Sandwich Mayor Todd Latham said that fee has not been increased in a long time.

“The cigarette license fee we think probably hasn’t been updated since there were cigarette vending machines,” he said. “So we increased that.”

As Sandwich City Administrator Geoff Penman noted, “now we’ve got gas stations that sell cartons and cartons of cigarettes.”

“So we just felt it should be a little bit higher,” he said.

The annual fee for each video gaming terminal in operation in the city increased from $75 to $125. Penman said quite a few businesses in Sandwich offer video gaming.

The city requires that that fee be shared equally between the terminal operator and the licensed establishment. The annual fee must be paid at the time of application for a video gaming terminal license and every year after that.

The fee for nonprofit organizations to sell beer and wine during a live performance or an event will increase from $10 to $50. In addition, the annual license fee for garbage haulers will increase from $200 to $300.

City officials have been studying the fee issue for the past two months.

“The City Council had some recommendations from what we reviewed,” Latham said.