BRUNSWICK — The Daniel hotel owes Brunswick nearly $100,000 in back taxes, according to the Brunswick Account Billing and Collection office. 

Boston East Brunswick Holdings LLC, The Daniel’s parent company, managed by Abhijit “Beej” Das, CEO of Troca Hotels, is scheduled to go to foreclosure Feb. 24 if it does not pay its outstanding 2017 bill of $40,517. 

The company also owes just under $40,000 in taxes for 2018, and so far owes just over $19,000 for 2019, as only the first half of the year has been posted, a town official said earlier last week. As of Wednesday evening, no payments had been made. 

The hotel paid it’s outstanding 2016 bill, another $40,000 debt, in Feb. 2019, before it could go to foreclosure. 

Monday night, a notice from the Maine Revenue Service posted on the hotel’s door said it was “closed for business with the general public” and that the “seller’s registration certification of this establishment has been revoked for noncompliance” with the state’s tax statute. The hotel has since reopened. 

Kyle Hadyniak, director of communications for the Department of Administrative and Financial Services, said the company has an active sales tax registration account and was permitted to reopen by coming into compliance. Hadyniak could not comment on the amount the company owed or on how much it paid to come into compliance for confidentiality reasons, he said. 

Das said in an email that “there was an administrative error with accounting” but refused to comment further and did not return calls requesting comment on the taxes owed to Brunswick. 

Troca also owns The Stonehedge Hotel and Spa in Tyngsboro, Massachusetts, which the Lowell Sun reported  was set to go on the auction block this month, but managed to delay the process until February after the company, Boston East Tyngsboro Holdings LLC,  filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, owing nearly $4.3 million in liabilities. Under federal law, filing for bankruptcy triggers an automatic stay of attempts to collect debt from a debtor. 

In 2018, the Massachusetts hotel was at risk of losing its license over more than $200,000 in unpaid back taxes to the town of Tyngsboro, a debt which Das also attributed to an “administrative error.” Das paid the money back in full by April, but the Lowell Sun reported he has since fallen behind again, owing more than $70,000 for 2019 and 2020. 

In October, The Daniel closed for three weeks for extensive HVAC repairs, canceling dozens of room reservations and a wedding with little to no notice.  

Das said at the time that though it was a “very difficult decision” to close the hotel and cancel reservations, there was a chill coming and he could not sell rooms without heat and space heaters were not a viable option. 

The HVAC system broke over the summer, requiring staff to purchase 42 window air conditioning units for the rooms and causing flooding in the ballroom. The elevator has also been broken for several months, but Das said it was an unrelated issue. 

He said at the time he expected the repairs would cost between $50,000 and $100,000, not counting the loss in revenue caused by three-weeks worth of vacancies in the building’s 24 rooms. 

The Daniel hotel, formerly known as the Captain Daniel Stone Inn, touts itself as “Brunswick’s Hidden Gem.” The Water Street hotel dates back to 1819, and has been renovated and “reimagined as Maine’s newest curated lifestyle luxury hotel,” according to its website.

Property records show that the hotel has had at least three different owners in the last 15 years and was on the market for more than two years before Das purchased it. 

Troca Hotels, “America’s leading cannabis-friendly hotel brand,” purchased the hotel, valued at about $2 million according to property records, in 2013 and began multi-million renovations in 2015. 

A third property is scheduled to open in Philadelphia this winter. 

The company also owns Troca One, a “superyacht” on the Boston waterfront. 

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