 |
Margate Commissioner owes more than $15,000 in delinquent Sales and Use Tax
• Margate Commissioner David McLean is repeat tax offender
Monday,
August 16, 2010
When special agents from the Florida Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco (AB&T) inspected business records at McLean’s Bar & Grill in January, they found 53 receipts for the purchases of beer and wine from retail vendors – not from licensed wholesale distributors as required by law.
Subsequently, Margate City Commissioner, David McLean forfeited his 2COP beer and wine license and was issued a tax warrant in March by the Florida Department of Revenue for almost $16,000 in Sales and Use Tax the city official collected from customers, but never paid to the state agency.
Revenue officials also placed a $400 lien on McLean’s Bar & Grill for Unemployment Tax due.
_______________
Since McLean’s Bar & Grill was put on the “no sale” list by AB&T in September 2009 for not paying a beer vendor for product, McLean continued selling alcoholic beverages to patrons at McLean’s Bar & Grill (2160 Mears Parkway) illegally until AB&T received an anonymous complaint in January that McLean was buying beer and wine from “other than wholesale distributors” states the AB&T investigative report, which constitutes “an illegal act and may result in criminal and or administrative charges.”
As one member of an elected body of officials tasked with overseeing the financial well-being of Margate taxpayers, McLean has a history of financial instability and a pronounced track record of fiduciary irresponsibility.
The tax warrant issued to McLean in March wasn’t his first. He was served a tax warrant in 2001 for owing more than $7,000 in Sales Tax from operations at his Alehouse Rock Café, where he was sued by his landlord in 2006 for what appeared to be back rent or damages of some kind.
In 1998, McLean paid more than $8,000 to food distributor Henry Lee for two counts of writing bad checks as owner of CHOO CHOOs Neighborhood Grill and two years earlier was ordered by the courts to pay Taylor A/C & Refrigeration roughly $1,300 for work completed at McLean’s Sports Bar & Grill, but for which McLean didn’t pay the company.
During the ten-year period 1996-2006, McLean was evicted twice from places of residence for default, according to public records.
McLean is paid approximately $28,000 a year by Margate taxpayers as compensation for his public service as City Commissioner. Last year he voted himself a raise and this year was in favor of raising Margate’s Fire Fee. He also voted yes to increase the city’s millage rate last year, a safe bet for McLean since he doesn’t own a home in the city, according to public records.
How ironic for taxpayers to pay McLean a salary, when he owes them almost $16,000 in misappropriated sales tax and has violated state law more than once.
McLean’s Bar & Grill was closed in February and reopened by a new owner as Guapos, a Latin nightclub featuring a full liquor bar, food and entertainment.
__________________________________________
Get MargateNews.net on your desktop, laptop or mobile Internet with customizable RSS (Real Simple Syndication) Feeds. Receive all the news, or just some of it, as soon as it’s published! Sign up now.
Access the wireless version of this website by visiting http://www.margatenews.net/margatenews/wireless with your WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) Internet-enabled wireless device.
Copyright © MargateNews.net 2010
| |
