Good For Hadley.

Hadley town meeting quickly and decisively accepted the optional excise taxes. Now lets see how many businesses flee to Greenfield where the Mayor is taking a "pro-business" stand and rejecting the revenue. Doubtless there will be traffic backed up on the I-91 exits as diners flock to the culinary center Greenfield will become.

By October 1, virtually no one will remember which towns have the excises and which don't, although the prospects of someone setting up a web site to remind us remain high. Overall, there seems to be less opposition to the room occupancy excise than the meals, probably because of the notion that folks from elsewhere stay at hotels. Neither tax will amount to much in terms of consumer demand and for many communities won't raise a significant amount of revenue or cover the loss in state aid. A band-aid solution to the whole issue of local revenues and sustainability.

Spare me the "anti-business" argument. The real local barriers to entry for businesses lie in overly zealous zoning and land use regulations, painfully slow and complicated permitting, and inadequate infrastructure.

As for the obligatory New Hampshire comparison, you can live free or die but pay an 8% meals tax and a 9% occupancy tax.