[C-U Smokefree] Regarding my Editorial in May 22 News-Gazette, Champaign needs to levy city cigarette tax to gain additional revenue

[George R. Carlisle, Jr.]

I mentioned that the city needs to levy a cigarette tax, and a tax on other
manufactured tobacco products to bolster its revenue.

Due to the need to build a new Champaign Public Library and a new fire
station to serve the repidly expanding southwest champaign residential and
commercial area, the City of Champaign is proposing new taxes, as an
increase in the extra home-rule sales tax of one quarter percent, and
increasing the Food and Beverage Tax, imposed on restaurants and prepared
food, such as in salad bars in supermarkets, by a whopping two percent!
These are regressive and hurt the people who can least afford it, myself
included.  People who live outside of Champaign have to pay as well if these
kinds of taxes are imposed.

I say we cannot afford these tax increases, but why can't we levy additional
taxes on tobacco products. I don't know how they are doing this; perhaps by
running up high credit card bills, the students seem to still be able to
find money to buy cigarettes, as many empty packs as I see on the strrets
and in trash receptacles and the multitudes of cigartte butts around town.
Pipe tobacco still has relatively low taxes, but I see few people smoking
pipes in public any more.  Perhaps some still do at home.

But that should be the first tax increase the city should impose. And it
would help the State of Illinois balance the budget a lot. If cigarettes
sell from $7.50 in New York City, why can't they be that much here? Students
would have to stop or cut down drastically.  We must make them prohibitive
for young kids, as high school students to start smoking.  There are still a
lot of kids crossing street from Urbana High School to Carle Park to smoke.

We need to ban smoking in most, if not all, public palces in
Champaign-Urbana.

Taxation of smoking materials will help discourage their use and will
hopefully provide a stopgap solution to the cities' financial woes.
Ultimately, when no one is still smoking, we will ahve to find other sources
of revenue.

George R. Carlisle