Ballots have been issued to around 3,000 businesses in Dublin city for a vote on whether to continue with a Business Improvement District (BID) scheme.
The scheme is run by DublinTown who collect compulsory levies from the businesses to provide enhancement of public areas and marketing.
However some local businesses have formed a group 'Bid Farewell To Bid' and are urging a 'No' vote.
Ann Marie Dabiri of Retro boutique says she does not believe that DublinTown provides a service and complains about the state of the city at the moment.
Fiona Barnes of Costelloe + Costelloe says they are opposed to double taxation and having to pay extra for services the city council should be providing for the commercial rates.
However Sam Donnelly of Sam's Barbers, who has premises both inside and outside the BID area, says he can see the benefits and he is one of a number of businesses who support the scheme.
Mr Donnelly says once a month he has to pay for graffiti to be removed from outside his barbers' on Ormond Quay which is provided by DublinTown for his premises in Dame Lane as part of his BID membership.
And he says the pavement outside is cleaned every Monday morning by DublinTown while his staff have to do the work on Ormond Quay.
However, the 'Bid Farewell To Bid' group points out that most of the levies were not paid last year and that DublinTown now has arrears of €3.9 million.
It says footfall in the city has declined by 40% between 2012 and 2020 and that Dublin 1 is regularly cited as a litter blackspot by the Irish Business Against Litter survey.
They also complain of a lack of transparency in the accounts and claim that nearly half the BID income - €700,000 - went on wages for DublinTown in 2020.
However, DublinTown issued a statement saying that their accounts are fully audited and accountable.
"Any accusation otherwise is blatant fake news and a distraction from the real issues that matter to businesses in this campaign," the statement added.
Ballots on whether to continue the scheme are being posted out and the count will take place on 20 April.
The 'Bid Farewell To Bid' group complain that they are not allowed to see the electoral roll which means they cannot contact the individual businesses.
They have also complained that some ballots were delivered in bulk during the last plebiscite in 2017.
In a statement, Dublin City Council says it cannot release the electoral roll containing the names of the businesses because of data protection issues, but that individual addresses are available online.
It also says that ballot papers are issued to the rate payer in question and in the case of multi-occupancy properties including shopping centres "some BIDS voters (rate payers) are therefore entitled legally to multiple ballot papers".
"Some of these Rate Payers therefore legitimately returned multiple legally issued ballots in large envelopes which were included in the ballot box," the statement added.
A total of 68% of businesses voted in favour of the levy in 2012 but this dropped to 54% in 2017.
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