The Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau Advisory Board wants the City Council to broaden the collection of the restaurant tax without voter approval.

But City Attorney Eric Cunningham said that would fly in the face of the tax-limitation provisions of the state's Hancock Amendment.

Cunningham said the proposed changes would broaden the tax by applying it to businesses that currently don't come under the city law.

"It would be imposing a new tax to the extent it was broadened," he said when reached at his City Hall office Wednesday evening.

The Hancock Amendment requires such measures to be submitted to the voters, he said.

CVB board members argue that the changes are needed so the tax can be applied fairly.

"It may be making it fair, but that is for someone else to decide besides me," he said. "You have to follow the constitution."

Cunningham didn't attend Wednesday's CVB board meeting.

Councilman Tom Neumeyer did. "We would be darn fools to disregard the advice of legal staff," he said after the meeting.

The CVB board wants the council to revise a 13-year-old city ordinance to require most meal-serving businesses to collect the 1 percent restaurant tax. Some of the money from the restaurant tax and the 3 percent motel tax are earmarked for tourism. Among other things, the tax funds the operation of the CVB.

The advisory board voted Wednesday afternoon to recommend that the motel tax be expanded to include bed-and-breakfast establishments.

Currently, the city exempts guest lodging with under eight beds. The board wants to eliminate that exemption.

The restaurant tax doesn't apply to some restaurant-type businesses such as convenience stores.

The board said the tax should apply to all businesses where food is prepared on the premises and delivered to customers, with a few exceptions.

The board said the tax shouldn't apply to meals delivered to hospital patients and nursing home residents or to those delivered as part of the Meals on Wheels program.

Board members said they would prefer the council make the tax changes without putting the issue before voters in the April municipal election. The board was aware of Cunningham's position.

Board members made that recommendation at the urging of businessman Jim Drury, who operates motels and restaurants.

Drury isn't a member of the board.

Drury said the tax changes are designed to correct problems that he and others first mentioned 13 years ago.

The tax isn't collected by all businesses that prepare and deliver meals to customers.

"It is a disaster today," Drury said.

The proposed tax changes could be scuttled by voter apathy and the public's anti-tax mood, he said.

"I think you are going backwards to have a vote," he said.

"We would love it not to have to come to a vote," agreed Shirley Talley, vice chairman of the CVB board.

Board member Walt Wildman said the City Council has the final say on whether to put the issue before voters.

"I don't think we can go into that fight," said Wildman.

But Wildman and the other board members eventually agreed to recommend the no-election approach.

"If you want a new building, you'll have to stick your neck out," said Drury.

The CVB currently operates out of rented quarters on Broadway.

The city's finance director, John Richbourg, has estimated the city could take in an added $45,000 annually by changing the tax ordinance.

Drury suggested the increased revenue could run over $100,000 annually.

Both Drury and board member Dan Drury expressed concern that motel and restaurant tax revenue has been stagnant.

Motel tax revenue totaled just over $313,000 in the past fiscal year. That is an increase of about $5,300 over the past three years.

Restaurant tax revenue has increased by more than $12,500 to $559,402 during the same period.