Fleeing Theater Gets Going-Away Tax Present

The city is on track to forgive over $10,000 of interest on the city’s last non-pornographic movie theater owner’s unpaid taxes bill it left behind when it left town.

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How much should the city forgive of the Criterion's bill for interest on six years of unpaid taxes?

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BTC New Haven LLC, owner of the now-closed Bow Tie Criterion Cinemas on Temple Street, sent a representative to the Board of Alders Tax Abatement Committee Tuesday night seeking forgiveness of $22,337.68 interest owed on personal property taxes.

He claimed that the city did not notify them of the results of a 2021 audit. The principal owed, in the vicinity of $63,000, remains the same.

The committee voted to forgive half the interest. The matter now goes to the full Board of Alders for a final vote on Aug. 5.

The Tax Abatement Committee consists of seven alders: Fair Haven’s José Crespo, Dwight’s Frank Douglass, Beaver Hills’ Brian Wingate, Newhallville’s Troy Streater, Fair Haven’s Sarah Miller, Westville/Amity’s Amy Marx, and Quinnipiac Meadows’ Theresa Morant. Miller, Marx, and Morant did not attend Tuesday night’s City Hall meeting.

Ron Statile, chief financial officer for Bow Tie Partners (BTC New Haven’s parent company), went before the committee members to plead his case. He said that the Criterion closed in October because of ​“financial difficulty related to the Covid situation,” and that BTC New Haven is trying to replace the movie theater with a ​“viable commercial tenant” in arts or entertainment rather than ​“stripping it for retail.”

In 2021, New Haven hired the firm Tax Management Associates to conduct an audit on several New Haven businesses, including BTC New Haven. The report was sent to the city Assessor’s Office. But, Statile said, BTC New Haven ​“never got any notices or information about the final audit bills.”

“We are solid taxpayers in town,” Statile said. ​“We are current. We just didn’t know about the audit.” BTC New Haven owes personal property taxes from 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, and 2023. Statile stated that any notices from the city may have been sent to an inactive business address in Ridgefield.

“We want to rectify the situation as soon as possible,” Statile said, explaining that the back taxes remain unpaid because new payments would automatically go toward the unknown audit-related ​“penalties and interests.”

The alders were sympathetic but critical.

“You knew the tax was owed,” Crespo told Statile, adding that it’s ​“not an obligation for the city to send a notice. It’s a courtesy.”

Douglass said that ​“our responsibility as taxpayers is to find out” what is owed.

Alder Wingate argued the abatement would be ​“beneficial” to getting the principal tax amount into the city’s coffers. Wingate and Douglass negotiated briefly before settling on forgiving half of the total interest that had accumulated: So $11,168.84 of interest would remain to be paid, bringing BTC New Haven’s total tax bill down from around $85,000 to $74,000.

After the committee agreed on eliminating half the interest, but before voting, Crespo pulled out his phone calculator to verify the figures. Douglass read the final abatement aloud. The committee voted unanimously to approve the abatement.

There were three other cases listed on the docket for Tuesday night’s meeting, but none of the three applicants for abatements showed up. Because all had been sent letters from the committee requesting their presence, the committee voted unanimously to dismiss all three cases before adjourning the meeting.

After the hearing, Statile called the vote ​“fair under the circumstances.”