Somehow, about six years ago somebody slipped a little loophole into the portion of the city code governing collection of Bend's transient room (hotel/motel) tax. The loophole might not be big enough to drive a truck through, but it could be big enough for more than $400,000 a year to leak through.
That's how much Visit Bend, the local tourism promotion agency, estimates the city could lose in revenue if it retains a bizarre $10-per-room exemption for hotels and motels that offer a complimentary breakfast to guests.
We call the exemption "bizarre" because, in the first place, it doesn't appear to exist anywhere but Bend. Deschutes County doesn't have it. The state doesn't have it. None of the cities in Oregon or even on the West Coast apparently have it.
The exemption also is bizarre because it absolutely defies logic. Its supposed purpose is to make Bend lodging "more competitive" with other places by reducing the room tax that guests must pay. But at an average per-night room rate of $102, the savings from the breakfast exemption is only 90 cents - hardly enough to persuade somebody to vacation in, say, Lincoln City instead of Bend.
