TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) – Could it become more expensive to see a movie or attend a ballgame in the city of Toledo?
A new fee could be on the way and it would not be the first time an Ohio city does this. Our I-TEAM has found several cities already doing it.
There’s nothing on paper for Toledo and nothing yet for Toledo city council members to consider, but there’s a blueprint in Ohio. City leaders say it could really help with the city’s budget.
Whether it’s a Walleye game in the winter or baseball in the summer, you might need to fork over some extra money to see them in the future. That came as Toledo’s mayor laid out the 2026 budget.
“Around the margins, there could be different opportunities for fees for service, little entertainment. An extra dollar you pay when you go to an entertainment venue, things like that, that could bring in millions, if not tens of millions of dollars. That could mean an extra dollar you could pay going to a baseball game or a movie or something like that,” said Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz.
Mayor Kapszukiewicz says this could help fill city budget gaps. Other Ohio cities already do this and not just cities with major professional sports. Take, for example, Canton, where the city council there this year enacted a 3% fee for entertainment venues and it’s 5% in what they call the Tourism Development District.
In Sandusky, the city council has enacted an 8% fee on its entertainment venues, which includes Cedar Point.
“We are going to need to think about ways to fix our revenue problem because that is what Toledo really has, not a spending problem,” said Mayor Kapszukiewicz.
This plan would not need to go in front of voters, but a vote of the city council will do it. No legislation is there yet and we don’t know if any will. But the mayor has now floated the idea publicly.
“There are an awful lot of residents of southeast Michigan who would be paying that tax. There are residents of Wood County, there are non-Toledoans who would be paying,” said Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz.
Not all cities of Toledo’s size do this. The city of Akron does not levy this kind of fee, according to a spokeswoman.
Latest Local News | First Alert Weather | Crime | National | 13abc Originals
Copyright 2025 WTVG. All rights reserved.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.13abc.com ’
