Rosemont hikes tax on tickets to pay for more security at large events
Starting next month, expect to pay an extra penny on the dollar to attend a Chicago Wolves game, concert or other ticketed event in Rosemont, which is hiking its local amusement tax.
The tax increase, from 3% to 4%, is due in large part to the increasing costs to retain and hire the employees who handle traffic and crowd control for large-scale events in the Northwest suburban entertainment destination, officials say.
Mayor Brad Stephens said there's been significant turnover in the ranks of the public safety department's auxiliary unit, which normally is composed of hundreds of part-time employees who staff events outside village-owned venues like the Allstate Arena, Rosemont Theatre and Donald E. Stephens Convention Center.
He attributes the turnover to pandemic-related reasons, saying many of those part-timers may have gotten full-time jobs elsewhere, or they no longer want to do that work. The job currently pays $21 an hour.
At the same time, village officials are looking at hiring a private firm to perform crowd and traffic control in concert with supervising officers from the village.
The tax increase, which takes effect March 1, could generate an extra $750,000 to $1 million a year to help pay for more auxiliary cops. But those estimated revenue figures depend on the pandemic, related state and county mandates, and attendance, Stephens said.
"In a good year, we do a lot of attendance. A weekend Wolves game, we've drawn ok. But during the week, we're getting clobbered," Stephens said. "I don't know if people are not vaccinated and don't want to go, or they don't want to deal with verifying they're vaccinated."
Despite his own misgivings with Cook County's proof-of-vaccination mandate at venues like the arena and theater, Stephens has said village officials are doing "the best we can" to enforce it. He said it's possible the county requirement would be dropped around the same time the state lifts its mask mandate Feb. 28.
The village amusement tax represents just one part of the cost of an average ticket, which also has a county tax and often a Ticketmaster fee. But officials say the increase won't apply retroactively to tickets already purchased - only to new tickets purchased after March 1.