At a City Council meeting on Tuesday, Councilman Bob Yates made his feelings know about the tax, saying “This is horribly written. This is a really, really bad law, and we're stuck with it."

Yates’ comments were in response to many local business owners and other council members who raised concern of the impact the tax will have on small, local business that are already operating on small margins. And to add to the confusion, the University of Colorado at Boulder only recently realized their campuses and thousands of students would have to pay the costly tax too.

These consequences are the reality of such taxes, which advocates frequently mislead voters into believing will benefit communities. But there is no silver bullet solution and the city of Boulder is learning this the hard way.