San Diego Union Tribune is reporting that the City of San Diego is so desperate to keep Comic Con International, that they are now willing to throw cold hard cash at the event organizers in order to convince them to stay. The offer on the table is $500,000.
If you like the idea, thank yourself, not San Diego. The half million dollar bribe will come from a tax on hotel beds. So San Diego is asking visitors to pay an extra tax so that residents may benefit from the increased business the Con brings to town. This would be on top of the 10.5% hotel tax that San Diego already charges. That simply sucks.
At the urging of Mayor Jerry Sanders, San Diego has budgeted $100,000 annually over a five-year period for Comic-Con, which believes that the worldwide publicity the city gets from the pop culture extravaganza pays dividends in marketing San Diego as a tourist destination.
What's worse, is that Comic-Con organizers actually praised the decision to take the $500k in cash raised from its own customers, instead of from the citizens of San Diego who supposedly will see all the benefit from it.
“We’re obviously very, very grateful for that,” Comic-Con spokesman David Glanzer said Tuesday.
Gfest now officially supports a move of Comic Con International. And somebody get Sarah Palin on the phone, because Comic Con officials needs a visit from the Tea Party. Maverick!
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