Contra Costa Restaurants File Lawsuit Over Taxes, Fees

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, CA — Restaurant owners in Contra Costa County have joined together to file a class action lawsuit over health permit fees and liquor license fees that were collected even though the businesses were forced to close either fully or partially for the better part of a year, according to a report by the Bay Area News Group. They want their money back.

Also filing lawsuits are restaurant owners in San Francisco, Santa Clara, Monterey and Sonoma counties in the Bay Area, and San Diego and Los Angeles down south.

The lawsuits are against the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and the county, and allege that government entities have been “unjustly enriched by the illegal exaction of money” from the restaurants “under the guise of a permit, licensing or tax fee that was unable to be used by business owners due to COVID-19 restraints."

“These fees can make the difference between rehiring a furloughed employee or not,” Dean Griffith, of The Old Spaghetti Factory in Concord, said in a press release. “Restaurants are doing everything they can just to survive until operations are back to normal levels,”

“We view this as significant government overreach,” Brian Kabateck, an attorney representing the restaurant group, said in a press release. “The defendants collected these fees at a time during the pandemic when officials were ordering the businesses to shut down or drastically limit operations.”

Contra Costa County restaurants were forced to close indoor dining 86-percent of the year and outdoor dining for at least 35-percent of the year, Bay Area News Group reports.

Read the full report