Welcome to your daily briefing on hospitality developments in Rhode Island. Today we're covering 5 key stories including updates on rhode island hospitality headlines, background & context. Let's dive in.
2 stories
Opening a restaurant in Arkansas requires obtaining a business license, food service license, seller's permit, FEIN, WEIN, and potentially a liquor license.
Understanding these requirements is crucial for hospitality professionals to ensure compliance and successful business operations.
Learn the step-by-step process to obtain a liquor license in Arkansas, including license types and application details.
Understanding the liquor license process is crucial for hospitality professionals to ensure compliance and streamline operations.
Reach professionals in this market
3 stories
Charging a no-show fee is permitted; the boundary cases are (1) failure to disclose the fee at booking time clearly, (2) charging more than the posted fee, and (3) charging after a same-day cancellation that is allowed under the posted policy. Each becomes a consumer-protection complaint when the booking confirmation does not match the charge.
State consumer-protection bureaus pursue patterns of small undisclosed charges aggressively because each affected guest is a potential complainant.
The merchant — the restaurant or hotel — remains responsible for PCI compliance regardless of the POS vendor's certifications. Vendor compliance covers the software; merchant responsibility covers network segmentation, employee access, and incident response. "We use a PCI-compliant POS" is not an audit response.
Card-brand fines after a breach apply to the merchant, not the vendor. Self-assessment questionnaires are required annually and are reviewed by acquiring banks.
Short-term rental platforms collect and remit local occupancy tax in some jurisdictions and not others — the same platform may handle it for one city and not the next over. Hosts who assume the platform handles all tax obligations frequently owe state or local tax that was never withheld.
Tax authorities are increasingly using platform data to identify hosts; back-tax assessments in this category routinely run multi-year and include penalties.
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