Samuel Veney was one of the first restaurant owners to publicly raise concerns over the city of Richmond’s meals tax collection.
When he opened his business in 2021, an employee of the city finance department said Philly Vegan didn’t need to pay the tax. But later, Veney and his partners received a bill for about $40,000.
Veney spoke with VPM News following a Feb. 12 City Council vote to change how payments are applied to meals tax bills — which doesn’t address the problem he encountered. Council is set to vote on another proposal later this month that would ease how and when penalties accrue on delinquent payments.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Dave Cantor: What in your personal life has been affected by this — because, even coming here, you had to go drop your kids off.
Samuel Veney: I mean, my children go to school. I'm coming to speak to you, where otherwise I would be on my way to my restaurant.
You know, it's not the same for everybody. Everybody doesn't go in and run their restaurant every day. I'm truly a small business owner.
When we go to tell the story, we can't tell the story just about some money. I mean, it’s money, everybody knows that we either got to pay it or we lost out on a lot of money. Our lawyers cost a lot of money, time that we missed is money. But it's even more than that, man.
Like, my children, man, they mean everything to me. And when I can't give them the stuff that I want them to have, when they don't have two other restaurants like they should, when I'm taking money from where I could be taking them on trips — or spending more time with them — because I gotta get a lawyer, that's hurting my children.
In the past, you've said that in a certain way, this has brought people together. So, can you talk about other positives that have come out of the meals tax issue?
I mean, you can always find the positives in a negative if you choose to look that way. And I always choose to look for that. Like, this isn't a situation where I want the city to be destroyed and everything like that. That's not what it is. What it is, is this is our opportunity to actually come together to create enormous change, an enormous amount of change that can make our city better for everyone. But it takes everyone coming together. So, unity is always positive.
So, what’s your general opinion of what got passed last night, and then kind of other moves by the city to help folks out?
I think something that was very important that they said last night was "that’s not enough" — and it’s not. What are we going to do next? Why are the processes still going on?
Last night, a lot of people hit me up after the meeting. I didn't even know they were contacting me during it. But because of what I said, I pulled out a letter, a letter that I just got in the mail. I just got another letter saying that my payment was applied to a delinquent amount. I don't even … I shouldn't even have a delinquent amount. So, the process is still broken.
What was your response to receiving that letter? I assume you've been in relatively constant contact with the city.
It was weird. We got it — one of our owners, Celicia, aka "Mama C" — she brought it to me. She says, "Samuel, believe it or not, we got another letter." I said, "What?" She said, "Yeah, look at his letter." And I look at it and I'm like, it's like we're back at square one. I'm like, what’s this letter even mean?
It was interesting to pull out the letter last night with the head city attorney there, because she's the one working with my attorney. You see me pull out this letter, right? Like, what is going on? Why am I getting a letter?
So, I really brought that letter to show that out of all people, I should be the one that's not getting the letter. So, imagine those people out there that aren't in a situation where we’re working through it with the city to get there and they haven't even gotten to this part of the process that I’m at. They're definitely getting letters. They're definitely still out there.
I brought that letter out, not for me, but for all the other people. Because if the process is supposed to be working now, if it's supposed to be quote-unquote fixed, it’s not. I'm showing you that it’s not, because of all people, I should not be getting a letter. Those other people that are out there, that are scared to come [to City Council] or just don't feel like they have a voice, I'm pulling this letter out for them.
