Gouging Tourists
- At a time when Chicago is trying to shed its image as a high-cost travel destination, the state and city are layering additional fees on visitors.
Airport taxi ride fees are doubling, from $2 to $4; O'Hare International Airport car rentals will be slapped with a daily fee of about $8 later this summer; and Chicago is among a number of cities lobbying for a hike in the airline ticket-tax limit, from $4.50 per leg of a flight to as much as $7, and the city has stated its intent to raise it to the max.
The fees come just as a new state law restructures operations at McCormick Place, with the aim of cutting costs to trade show exhibitors, some of the city's most valued visitors.
And with Shortshanks blaming texting suburbanites for lakefront problems and Chicago's crime being covered relentlessly in the national media, tourist dollars are drying up as the day-trippers go elsewhere. Add in the city dwellers shopping for everything possible outside of Chicago and Cook County, the death spiral continues.
Labels: money questions
posted by SCC at 12:05 AM
46 Comments:
I'm thinking about giving tours of the West Side, man. Kinda like the Cosmo Kramer reality tour, but mine will be a little more reality based, you know?
We'll ride around feeling good, holla at some ladies, drink a little grape drink & listen to a little Creedence Clearwater!
It's become far too expensive to rent a car in this town even if you live here. I've had to pay close to $50 a day for a cheap-ass compact Kia Rio (or Nissan Sentra) that has air and 'satellite' radio as the only options. And wait 'til you see the fucking taxes heaped onto that! I'm glad I've got a CTA fare card, it's the only way to go to either airport! Pack lite for vacations, take only what you can comfortably carry yourself. It's no wonder you see a lot of rental cars here with out of state plates. The car rental companies need every break they can get just to stay in business, and anyone reading this who owns multiple cars knows (especially in June) how those multiple City stickers add up.
Kid at Taco Bell shows me his $100 extortion red light camera ticket today..... thats over two days pay for this kid. anyone????
SCC,
What about the $72 Million Dollar green space project at the I90, I290, Congress merge???
Where did that money come from?
Daley has plenty of money for his pet projects and "OUTFIT" buddies.
Who cares? If you are dumb enough to come to this shithole for vacation you should be triple taxed.
The additional tax on rental cars is to pay for a new centralized rental facility. Why dont the the rental companies pay for it? If they even want it? It's a shortshank's ploy to give Rossi Construction more work.
Dictator Daley is the worst business man in America! I wish the national media would report this story. Daley is a deterent to business and growth. Tax and spend is all he knows. He should cut the waste and reward the productive. Instead he rewards the deadbeats and hurts the productive.
Keep a close eye on the Housewares Show and the large Gift Shows. After being re-elected time after time Mayor Daley is well aware he can con his citizens. His magic powers stop at the city line. I just booked two booths in San Antonio Texas for their Gift Show and was pleased to hear the Housewares Show in Texas is moving to a larger venue due to "extreme interest from sellers and buyers." Surprise surprise. In the end, it's his rapacious greed that will kill him like he killed the best of Chicago.
This reminds me of the TV series.."The Tudors" lol
Here is a good one. I took my Granddaughter ( 7 Y.O. ) downtown yesterday to get fitted for a violin. When all of the paperwork was finished, the conservatory informed me that the rental fee did not include the $4.00 per month tax that the City Of Chicago charges. What kind of BS is this?
So glad that I retired from the CPD.
In the past, Daley put a lot of focus on Tourism. He knew that the tourists could be the Golden Goose. They have done a lot in the past to keep our economy going. Perhaps, after his big loss with the Olympics, he is now blaming the tourist for his big loss when he looked like a jerk to the entire world and he has to blame someone.
We know he cannot handle looking like a jerk. It seems to be translating into more fees for tourists.
Anyone needing a rental car at O'Hare can jump in a taxi cab and head to Schiller Park or Franklin Park for their rental car. Renting the car a few blocks away will save you at least $9.00 per day.
Watch how many rental car companies spring up in the bordering suburbs now and provide free shuttle service from O'Hare.
More $$$$ lost for Chicago!
DUMP DALEY!!!
Kid at Taco Bell shows me his $100 extortion red light camera ticket today..... thats over two days pay for this kid. anyone????
6/15/2010 12:46:00 AM
Tell the kid the brake pedal is on the left.
raise taxes....less tax revenue. raise more taxes...even less revenue. the cycle continues. maybe the taxpayers will wake up here. the middleclass? is getting killed here, while the ultra rich and freeloaders keep marching on! gouging? more like tax muggers!
And those aren't just one time surcharges, I bet. I assume that the extra fees will be tacked on every day of rental.
he is gouging the shit out of the tax paying base that reside here so it should come as no suprise that he would rip off people coming here for business or pleasure.... as he was being booed at the hawks rally last friday you could see him losing it, turning red and stuttering and calling coach "q" coach quailville.... mcmumbles, your retirement home awaits you at 4200 n oak park ave....
Daley will tax people until they stop coming here. A tax on 0 equals 0. He knows nothing about economics or public administration.
Anybody who comes to this rink-fuck city is soft as a fuckin peach
Take your Trade Shows to a true American State, ARIZONA !
You will notice this new rent a car tax is for a new building, and have you noticed they are not talking about cutting the tax off when the builing is paid for? Its just another way of getting boatloads of money for the mayors friends and family.
PLease note, the city already owns the land!
This prick Daley is out to get $$$$ from anywhere he can . He is going to make the city a fuckin' ghost town . I'm so glad that I've retired and moved out of state but while I was there last month I had my picture taken at Archer & Narragansett and now I'm waiting for my $100 ticket in the mail . Thank you Mr. Mayor , I hope that 1000 magots crawl up your rotten Irish ass . Fuck you again !!!
I raely go the ciyt anymore.Too expensive and too much crime.
"The additional tax on rental cars is to pay for a new centralized rental facility. Why dont the the rental companies pay for it? If they even want it? It's a shortshank's ploy to give Rossi Construction more work."
--6/15/2010 02:53:00 AM
"A new centralized rental facility?' Aw, jeez. There goes the other half of Bensenville...
Pay crosswalks are next. Have to buy a ticket from a little black machine before you can cross the street. They'll start on Michigan Avenue and slowly work outwards from there.
OT ~ The "green" mayor lies
Last week, I put out my lawn clippings for recycling as we are REQUIRED to do under the city's recycling ordinance. They were not picked up and the bags were drenched from the rain. Today, my regular trash pick-up took all the clippings that I had separated to be recycled, and THEY mixed it in with the regular trash.
So I ask the driver "What's up with that?" and he says they are VERY short handed and they (Streets & San) have all been cut to a 40 hour work week (No OT), including "special" clean-ups for the various festivals and parades and holidays etc. He said the recycling runs are no longer taking place as scheduled (every two weeks in my blue cart neighborhood) and will only be available if manpower exists for it. So, even though the city REQUIRES us to recycle, the mayor is f*cking up the whole process,(or is old Tommy Byrne responsible)!
So, I googled "Chicago green city" and found this from a year ago. Yeah, BIG surprise. Another reason the stuttering prick should be looking at us from a jail cell!!!
"Chicago's Green City Campaign A 'Total Public Relations Fraud': Professor"
http://www.chitowndailynews.org/Chicago_news
/A_green_city_skeptic,23953
MY QUSETION IS WHY DO THE NEW POLICE STATIONS HAVE A LANDSCAPING SERVICE COMING IN TO PLANT NEW BUSHES?! wHY CAN'T STREETS AND SAN CLEAN UP THE BUS SHELTERS INSTEAD OF PAYING FOR A COMPANY TO DO IT? WHY DOES FLEET MANAGEMENT HAVE A PRIVATE COMPANY RUNNING THE PARTS DEPARTMENT IN THE POLICE GARAGES? WHY WASN'T HUBERMAN INDICTED FOR THAT BOGUS MOTOTROLA CONTRACT?
"...the death spiral continues..." -- SCC
From just traveling around town this weekend --
Waldo's -- a dollar store, for God's sake -- in 2800 block of N. Central by the Aldi is all trashed inside and empty now, ragged "FINAL LIQUIDATION DAYS" posters stll half-hanging from the dirty windows.
Foster and Northwest Highway -- a fast-food place and three nearby stores in a mini-strip-mall, all empty and "FOR LEASE." I think the horrible "Cash loans on your auto title" place there died out too.
Best news? O'Reilly Auto Parts, here and there around town. It's just stuff, but the logo on the signage is a plain, inoffensive shamrock, not that horribly ugly three-second meth-freak Magic Marker sketch of the wild-haired, dirty-looking, bearded, distorted Murray showing all his snaggled teeth.
It is my contention that a Murray's Auto Parts store could lead to the decline of a neighborhood all by itself, just from that awful, awful sign.
Glad you died, Murray.
Good f***ing riddance, and I hope you got an extra-deep grave in a soggy, low-lying section out at Burr Oak. (retch)
The additional tax on rental cars is to pay for a new centralized rental facility. Why dont the the rental companies pay for it? If they even want it? It's a shortshank's ploy to give Rossi Construction more work.
6/15/2010 02:53:00 AM
===
Well, if it's a facility like thay have in Vegas, bring it. What a pleasure it is to use that facility. One location, one shuttle bus that runs every five minutes, one parking lot with separate company sections... excellent plan.
It's not only the tourist anymore, it's all of us that live here. I don't by gas or groceries in Chicago and if I can avoid it, Cook Co. I am buying an Ipad this summer and it will be 35$ less when I am in Florida this summer. Dumb ass Daley.
/15/2010 09:33:00 AM
Anonymous said...
Take your Trade Shows to a true American State, ARIZONA !
6/15/2010 09:50:00 AM
Amen, brother. One of few American cities where the real Native American (Indian) still thrives.
"Chicago, that taxing town" on the front page of today's Tribune.
With Summerfest, the world's largest music festival coming to Milwaukee June 24 through the 4th of July, who in their right mind is going to the Taste and the other Chicago events to be harrassed (if not worse) by roving bands of thugs?
I found it amusing that DaLey, Oprah, Obama and crew couLd not get the bid for the oLympics. They were out done by the BraziLians. It does seem that Richie is stiLL bitter about that...
I'm thinking of coming to Chicago on vacation, but with the prices of rental cars going through the roof, I will probably just steal one.
MILWAUKEE SUMMERFEST said...
"Chicago, that taxing town" on the front page of today's Tribune.
With Summerfest, the world's largest music festival coming to Milwaukee June 24 through the 4th of July, who in their right mind is going to the Taste and the other Chicago events to be harrassed (if not worse) by roving bands of thugs?
6/15/2010 10:17:00 PM
I have lived in chicago my whole life and only attened the taste once. After I saw all the thugs and paid big $$$$ to park and go to a thug fest I never went back again. Myself, family and friends go to milwaukee every year. It's a much better time. We now try to never go to any chicago event and several of my family and friends have moved out of chicago. Daley has been mayor too long and is destroying the city.
I won't go into minutiae or details- I'll just ask if anyone else has ever seen the intense, city sanctioned nickel and diming that goes on at Chicago's trade shows? It boggles the fucking mind... Like, charging people a mandatory $100 a day to rent a stool. It's the sort of "only in Chicago" extortionist bullshit that keeps people away.
The assholes in City Hall have this hubris that believes since we're "Chicago!", people must come here to have their conventions... So, so, so sorely mistaken and with every square foot of convention space that's hammered up in other places, they're proven wrong. As our convention business drains to other places, please, no one wonder why. Allowing this nonsense to continue is a cancer.
Daley is worse than Kwame Kilpatrick! Detroit is actually looking good compared to Daley's Chicago. Vote for this stupid bastard again in 2011 and we will deserve what we get!
A one-legged man participating in the running of the bulls in Pamplona would have better chance of not getting gouged than someone in Chicago.
The Company Park Concessions handles Chicago Park District Concessions. Soooooo, I stop a citizen residing in this Sanctuary City for his license to peddle on lake front. Point to Park District License taped to a cardboard hand written sign. Has picnic tables set up with coolers, etc. Ask where his hot water is and he says he ran out. Sooo, I tell him then he has to leave. There is no running water anywhere. Man states he has gloves (which none of 4 people had on) and then pointed to porta potty and says he uses gloves. He then called Park Concessions who asked me if I had a Health and Sanitation Certificate and told me the man was fine. This company is now running/recruiting all the concessions for the Park District. If you rent a site, you can not bring anything in...you have to contract for all their food and equipment (such as for events at So. Shore or the Point). This Sanctuary Citizen had to be asked three time for ID when provided, he had a Mexican ID expired 3 years! Were screwed! Oh, and I am getting a hot dog cart and no license!
anyone looking for a good time go to milwaukee for summerfest... clean venue and plenty of stuff for the young uns to do... go to www.summerfest.com for entertainment line up....
The midway rental car scandal has been in full swing swing since 2000! look at your rental car $3.75 surcharge to fund the building of a new rental car garage! Any investigative reporters want to look! No new rental car garages why? HMM! More money shortshanks and the 50 cowards are taking? "The manila envelope please"!
Oh, and let's not forget the fines that tourists get routinely hit with... $250 for tinted windows, $??? for driving a pickup truck on LSD or a "boulevard", $50 for no front plate...
If King Richie and the Aldercritters think that someone from Indianapolis who has no front plate and tinted windows will ever come back to Shi-town after being hit with a few tickets, they are dumber than we thought... It's the tourists that will have the last laugh.
Oh, and let's not forget the fines that tourists get routinely hit with... $250 for tinted windows, $??? for driving a pickup truck on LSD or a "boulevard", $50 for no front plate...
If King Richie and the Aldercritters think that someone from Indianapolis who has no front plate and tinted windows will ever come back to Shi-town after being hit with a few tickets, they are dumber than we thought... It's the tourists that will have the last laugh.
6/16/2010 02:44:00 PM
The tourists would not be hit with tickets/fines if you retards wouldn't write the tickets. Why are you writing tickets anyway and generating revenue for the mayor? I guess we can't stick together and some continue to suck up and write tickets.
As Chicago Trade industry continues to stick it up the ass of every vendor and buyer in the country, Arizona, Texas and Mississippi are building new venues for trade shows faster than you can say "Daley and Co. can screw themselves"
Tell him "Red light means Stop."
"Tell him "Red light means Stop."
6/17/2010 05:05:00 AM"
"Green light means Go."
"Yellow light means Go Very Fast."
Hey Stupid Mayor and Union People, It snows here you idiots.
Post a Comment
<< Home