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The state's sales tax would also be charged on haircuts, yoga studios, pet grooming, Silver Beads Charms on sale car washes, among other services. At the retail level, the 6 percent sales tax would increase to 6.35 percent. But the luxury taxes seemed to capture much of the attention during a nine-hour hearing as car dealers, boat owners and jewelry sellers drove to Hartford to make their voices heard. John Green, president and chief executive officer of Silver/Gold Beads Charms on sale, predicted that his jewelry company would lose five to seven jobs because the ripple effect would extend beyond the additional 3 percent surcharge on jewelry items over $5,000. Customers, he said, would also avoid the store for items under that threshold and could potentially buy from stores as far away as Pandora Gold Bead on sale, which would ship items to Connecticut. "Our customers will go elsewhere" for items above and below $5,000, Green said. "They just won't go into our stores." Pandora Silver Bead on sale, a fiscally conservative Greenwich Republican, agreed with Green that the proposal would backfire. "Luxury taxes, in my research," Frantz said, "100 percent of the time have failed." Numerous speakers cited the federal luxury tax that was imposed in 1991 on yachts by President George H. W. Bush. Yacht sales plummeted, which opponents said was directly attributable to the tax, while others said it was more attributable to the deep recession at the time.