Sad news for Tosci's fans

[nonelvis]

State seizes ice cream firm over back taxes

Farewell, Chocolate No. 3, Orange Chocolate, Nocciola, Grapenut Raisin, Vienna Finger Cookie, Butter Chip, Cake Batter, and at least 50 other flavors I've had since I first arrived in Massachusetts more than 20 years ago. It sounds like Gus has no one to blame here but himself, but I'm still incredibly sad to see this happen.

Comments

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Well, this is the second time in the past [mumble] years that this has happened. During my final days as a contractor-ex-employee at MIT, there was a week where the property was shuttered with tax notice stickers on the doors - I remember passing by to get a Vietnamese coffee and being horrified. It reopened two or three days later. That's also about the time when the other locations began closing.

Gus will pay them enough to get them off his back for another three or four years, and then this whole show will play out again. Lather, rinse, repeat, until Gus dies or runs out of people to sweet-talk. Now he has a big bill to pay but if he had paid the taxes along the way he wouldn't be having this problem. I know why Gus doesn't want to pay the food tax - he's posted signs in the shop which give it away. He feels he pays too much for ingredients already and he's always worried that he has to charge so much for ice cream which meets his quality standards that people will stop buying it. (Ask him about the New England milk price controls if you dare, but prepare for an explosion.) But not paying the employee stuff is just unacceptable. Furthermore most of the "Gus is an ass" stories I've heard, Robert, come from his employees, whom he apparently is a jerk to.

In my personal experience with Gus he has had a split personality. I've encountered him on good days when he's friendly and solicitous and talkative, and I've encountered him on bad days when he really projects, "get out of my sight, I don't want your business and you're wasting my time."