PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- With the beating of drums filling the air, some two dozen members of the advocacy group Rhode Island Jobs with Justice staged a protest in front of the Renaissance Hotel Wednesday calling on the city to revoke the remaining portion of an agreement it signed 10 years ago, limiting the the hotel's property tax payments for 20 years.
Andrew Tillett-Saks, a lead organizer, said the group doesn't see why The Procaccianti Group (TPG), which purchased the hotel in 2012, should continue receiving city tax breaks while exploiting its workers.
While Tillett-Saks said he is involved in the drive by hotel employees to win union representation, he insisted that that effort had nothing to do with Wednesday's protest.
Details of the tax stabilization agreement, reached in about 2003, were not immediately available from city officials Wednesday night, but Tillett-Saks said he believed it amounted to $8 to $10 million spread out over the next 12 to 14 years.
When the city signed a tax stabilization agreement in the early 2000's, it was described as a critical piece in the effort by Denver-based Sage Hospitality Resources to turn the hulking Masonic Temple, that had sat abandoned since 1929, into a luxury hotel.
Reached by phone Wednesday night, Councilman Luis Aponte said Sage appeared to be living up its agreement to create good jobs with benefits, but things changed when TPG took over in 2012 and cut jobs and benefits. He noted that there's now a proposal before the city council to look at all of the city's tax stabilization agreements, and he said he doesn't think a that a firm that has been treating its workers so poorly should continue receiving tax breaks.
A spokesman for TPG could not be reached Wednesday night.