Claudio Magagnin was both happy and disappointed when he found out that the HST will soon be extinguished.
"I'm happy that the tax will be gone but in the meantime, we'll still be collecting the tax for the next couple of years," said Magagnin, who runs Pasta Amore Ristorante and Pizzeria on Dawson Street. "The tax has bugged me so much and it's hurt small businesses like mine."
Magagnin said he's disappointed the tax helped in the demise of many small businesses.
"I had a friend who opened a café, put in $80,000 to $90,000 into it and he's now out of business. ... It's almost like the government didn't care about small business when they brought in the HST."
Magagnin, who recently expanded his business by adding a new pizza oven, said he still needs to find out how the extinguishing of the tax will affect his accounting procedures, but he expects his customers to be happy that restaurant meals will soon be seven per cent cheaper.
Further north in Burnaby, Jenny Siormanolakis and her family run Romana Restaurant and Siormanolakis weighed in with her thoughts on social media.
On Twitter, Siormanolakis wrote "not impressed" and on Facebook, she wrote "disgusted and P.S. enjoy the increases in your personal taxes ... to make up for this mess."
The mixed opinions are in contrast to comments issued by Mark von Schellwitz, Western Canada vice-president of the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association.
"After months of tax policy uncertainty, our members welcome the certainty and food tax fairness that comes with the HST decision. We expect that PST will be restored with the same exemptions to once again tax all food equally in British Columbia," said von Schellwitz in a press release.
He added the HST was problematic for restaurants because it created an unlevel playing field, as food purchased in a restaurant was taxed while most food purchased in a supermarket would not.
Elections B.C. announced the HST referendum results Friday morning, with 54.73 per cent voting to get rid of the tax, and 45.27 per cent voting to keep it.
The referendum was conducted by mail-in ballot. Nearly 1.6 million people responded, about half of B.C.'s eligible voters.
The 12 per cent HST combines the seven per cent provincial sales tax and the five per cent federal goods and service tax. It came into effect July 1, 2010.
Before July 1, 2010, restaurant meals only had the five per cent GST added to the bill.
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