Oct 24
2024
Braymiller Market pays its delinquent taxes
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Braymiller’s grocery includes a deli. Photo by Garrett Looker.
It took two formal warnings from the Erie County Industrial Development Agency and the threat of losing a key tax break, but Braymiller Market owner Stuart Green paid his overdue city taxes Wednesday.
Green’s $8,200 payment, half his annual bill, was nearly three months late and was at least the third time he’d missed the deadline for paying his city property tax, according to city records. Under the terms of a 2019 package of tax breaks, which totaled $765,000, Bryamiller is responsible for paying 20 percent of its tax bill.
John Cappellino, president and CEO of the IDA, said Wednesday that Green’s failure to pay prompted the agency to move toward revoking his tax break, meaning he would be responsible for 100 percent of the bill. That could be around $80,000 annually.
Cappellino said Green called him around 8 a.m. Wednesday, pledging to pay.
Investigative Post reported Tuesday that despite a $561,000 loan last year from the city, Braymiller Market has continued to struggle financially. Since its fall 2021 opening, the business has suffered steep revenue losses and has fallen behind on loan and tax payments.
Green, who refuses to speak with Investigative Post, told The Buffalo News Wednesday that his business “is doing great” but that it’s “nobody’s business.”
Cappellino told reporters Wednesday that the IDA would continue to monitor Green to ensure he’s making payments. His next, due at the end of the year, will have to be made “in a more timely [fashion].”
“And so in this case, if he’s not meeting his PILOT payments, then we would no longer provide the tax incentive,” Cappellino said.
Acting Mayor Christopher Scanlon, a member of the IDA’s board of directors, said it was too soon to say whether or not the city would bail out the downtown store again in the future.
“I don’t think it was a mistake to try to have the store downtown at all. I think any major city is going to have amenities like that in the downtown core,” he said. “We just have to continue to see how we can make it work.”
