Up In Smoke

This is not good for (some) consumers, either (“Tobacco tax hike puts damper on Fla. cigar makers”)...

A Cuban Crafter Cigar Factory worker checks on the cigars Monday, March 23, 2009. People are stocking up on cigars before the April 1 tax increase. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

MIAMI – Inside the rolling room of El Credito Cigar Company, the air is earthy and fragrant, a mix of coffee and nuts tinged with caramel and leather.

Amid those sweet smells, though, workers are worried about a new federal tobacco tax that threatens Florida's $2 billion cigar industry. Starting Wednesday, the tax will increase from 5 cents to about 40 cents on large cigars, a little less on smaller stogies. Cigar makers say the increase will torch jobs and profits — what's left of them in the recession.

Like dozens of cigar companies dotting Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, El Credito uses traditional rollers — or, in Spanish, "torcedors" — to hand make La Gloria Cubana, the company's most famous and expensive cigar. The workers sit at wooden tables and fold tanned tobacco leaves, cut them with a crescent-shaped knife and then roll the wads into fat Churchills, Coronas and Torpedoes.

"Many of our rollers are worried," said Hector Ventura, operations manager for El Credito. "They think that if we have less sales, they will lose their jobs. We know for sure the tax increase will reduce our sales. It's not good for our business, not good at all."

I DO feel bad for the cigar industry, and most especially for the guys that make hand-rolled cigars. As noted above, they stand to lose the most from this tax increase. I’m not too worried about the taxes on my cigars going up… mainly because cigars are a recreational item for me and I smoke less than one a day if you average it all out. I can absorb the increase without much pain, speaking strictly from an economic-impact point of view, and I don't plan to change my consumption habits. The amount of the tax increase pisses me off considerably, though. It's not enough for the government to double or even triple the tax on cigars... nooo, they have raise it by a factor of eight. That's just a bit excessive, innit?

I have some strong opinions about the equality aspect of taxing the living Hell out of smokers, too. The tax on tobacco is a regressive tax with a disproportionate impact on the poorer among us. THAT irritates me to no end. What was that The One said? I think it was something like this…

"I can make a firm pledge," he said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12. "Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."

[…]

Government and private research has found that smoking rates are higher among people of low income.

A Gallup survey of 75,000 people last year fleshed out that conclusion. It found that 34 percent of respondents earning $6,000 to $12,000 were smokers, and the smoking rate consistently declined among people of higher income. Only 13 percent of people earning $90,000 or more were smokers.

I’m pretty danged glad I don’t smoke cigarettes any longer, however. Consider this:

God help you if you smoke cigarettes and live in New York City. I saw an item on the news yesterday that a single pack of smokes now costs $11.10 in The Big Apple. I’m old enough to remember a time when I paid about a quarter… 25 cents… for a pack of ciggies. Granted… that was when I was overseas back in the ‘60s and bought my smokes in the commissary on base, free from all taxes. Yet, still… it’s taxation like this that leads to black markets. Just hide and watch.

―:☺:―

Forgive me a self-indulgent moment, Gentle Reader, coz this blog is also my journal (sorta). I'm still down and out where the "gastric distress” thing I talked about this past Monday is concerned. There has been no real improvement in the situation and I'm still tethered to the RV for all intents and purposes. I called the clinic out at the base yesterday and had a phone consultation with a nurse-practitioner, who informed me there's a bug going around and that said bug typically lasts five or six days. Color me surprised, as I thought this sort of thing usually lasts a day or two at the most. So... I've been given some dietary restrictions and other sorts of counseling... the bottom line being to wait it out and things WILL get better.

Lord, I sure hope so... coz this thing is turning into a right-royal PITA. Literally.