Posted on 07/01/2002 6:16:23 AM PDT by SheLion
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed a bill yesterday that will raise the city's cigarette tax to $1.50 a pack beginning today. City officials and opponents of smoking say the increase will give New York the highest cigarette tax in the nation and push the price of some brands to more than $7 a pack.
"This may be the most important measure my administration takes to save people's lives," Mr. Bloomberg said before signing the bill during an unusual Sunday morning public hearing in City Hall. The timing was necessary for the law to take effect today.
Under the new law, the city's cigarette tax will grow by $1.42 from the current 8 cents a pack. On top of that, the city's smokers will have to pay the highest state cigarette tax in the nation, an additional $1.50 a pack. The two taxes will increase the price of some brands to more than $7 a pack, which is nearly double the national average.
As anti-smoking advocates praised the tax, smokers complained bitterly that the city was balancing its budget on their backs. And a representative of bodega owners warned that many stores could be driven out of business and that more smokers would buy black market cigarettes.
City officials say the new tax will bring a much-needed $111 million into the city's coffers this year, helping plug a budget shortfall of nearly $5 billion, but Mr. Bloomberg said that he viewed the measure mainly as a public health initiative.
"If it were totally up to me, I would raise the cigarette tax so high the revenues from it would go to zero," said the mayor, who has said he hopes that the higher taxes will persuade smokers to quit and will prevent children from becoming smokers.
At the hearing, Mr. Bloomberg found himself face to face with critics.
Audrey Silk, the founder of a group called Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment, testified that consenting adults should be free to engage in risky behavior if they choose, and that smokers should not be singled out for higher taxes.
Then she turned the tables on the mayor and his predilection for some junk foods.
"I know that you love to eat chunky peanut butter with bacon and bananas," she said. "How about I come out and start a campaign to tax that bacon, that's going to cause heart disease, and tax that super-chunky peanut butter that's going to kill you?"
After conferring with the city's health commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, Mayor Bloomberg said: "The health commissioner points out that this is not exactly freedom of choice, given that smoking is addictive and that the industry spends billions of dollars to get people hooked on it."
Jim Lesczynski, a former Libertarian Party candidate for City Council, testified that the tax would lead to the creation of a new black market, with illegal cigarette dealers getting into shootouts and terrorist groups like Hamas turning to cigarette smuggling to finance their activities. He told the mayor that he would be distributing free cigarettes around the city to protest the new tax. And he pointed to the portrait of Thomas Jefferson on the wall behind the mayor.
"I note with a little bit of irony," Mr. Lesczynski said, "that you're signing this bill below the picture of a gentleman farmer from Virginia who was a fan of tobacco, and not a fan of excessive taxation."
The mayor told Mr. Lesczynski not to give any free cigarettes to minors. As for the founding father, the mayor said, "the gentleman behind me, up on the picture, lived in a period where we did not have medical evidence of just what smoking does."
The city initially expected the tax increase to generate $250 million a year. But the state, which was worried that the city's higher tax, by discouraging smoking, would therefore drive down the amount of revenues expected from the state's tax, is taking roughly half the revenue generated by the city tax for itself.
A City Health Department spokeswoman, Sandra Mullin, said that with the new law, New York City would have the highest cigarette tax in the nation. The tax also won praise from groups like Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and the American Cancer Society.
Richard Lipsky, a lobbyist for the owners of small delis, bodega owners and convenience stores, predicted in an interview that many neighborhood stores would not survive the higher tax as many smokers would buy their cigarettes over the Internet, from Indian reservations, from adjoining states or from smugglers.
But Mr. Bloomberg argued that children, at least, would find it difficult to find cheaper cigarettes. "Children, let me point out, generally don't have credit cards, so they don't go on the Internet and buy cigarettes, generally," he said. "Children don't drive, so they don't go to other states."
And he pointed out that cigarette taxes were going up steeply in New Jersey as well, and said that he had talked with Andrew J. Spano, the Westchester County executive, about the possibility of higher cigarette taxes there as well. "We're trying to get everybody in the surrounding areas to raise the cigarette tax," he said.
When cigarettes went up to $5 dollars a pack last year in Maine, that's when we started RYO! Can't beat it. And the money saved for Christmas is really sweet.
And not paying into the state coffers makes it all the more sweeter!
Adults who choose to smoke do NOT want to be forced to quit. What the smokers want is for Big Government to butt out of our lives. What smokers want is for the control and restrictions and the bans to STOP!
And it will be people like Audrey Silk (quoted in article) tha will be caught in the cross-fire. New York's Finest will be stuck enforcing the laws against the black marketeers.
I'm thankful I had enough sense to get out of the city of my birth many years ago.
Audrey SHOULD have addressed the RINO Idiot Mayor as "Mayor One-Timer!" What a putz!
And that's exactly why I write letters and tell them: "Do NOT say smoking has gone down because your REVENUES have dropped. People got tired of paying into your gold lined coffers, and have gone ELSEwhere for their legal commodity!"
The Mafia.
Just make sure the ones you use on the Internet aren't turning in the names of their customers. A few do, most don't.
As long as you can be assured that they aren't turning in names of their customers, your doing fine.
The government is trying to crack down on cigarette sales on the Net, but if they do that, they will have to go after EVERY one that sells anything on the net.
And that's about what I smoke. Thanks. Looks like I'll be about a thousand dollars richer next year. : )
I can't say what the rules are to each company that sells on the Net. You would have to go to each site and read their fine print. :)
5 cartons is about what the average smoker goes through. That's about right for me.
You won't believe the extra money for Christmas. Put the tax money in a jar, starting soon, and by Christmas, you will have a nice nest egg. :)
* truth is contagious (to borrow a phrase from the enemy)
The memories that word brings back!!!! LOL -
OK - back on target. As a member of New York's finest I'm sure Ms. Silk wouldn't be making such comments. It would not surprise me if she wasn't thinking them, however!!
Had it been me, well that's a different story - but I don't have a job or a pension to jeopardize (and no one can go after my dad or brother for what I might say!!)
As to calling Bloominidiot a putz - I will not put here what I have been calling him since he became Mayor - I really don't want to get kicked out of FR!!!
Sounds like a good idea. And it won't be a very merry Christmas for Mr. Daschle and Mr. Glendening (and Mrs. Kennedy-Townsend, unfortunately.)
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