I got an email today. I’m quite "Internet popular" so I get lots of them. Some of the emails are informative. Some of the e-mails are funny. This
one was trying to sell me on some sham. It came from the Marin
Institute. (Luckily, I made their list. It’s funny, how did they know
I was from Marin?)
The subject line: "Thumbs-up on the local Charge for Harm alcohol fee!"
Thumbs up? When did a tax on alcohol become good cause for a celebratory motion of not one, but two of my thumbs?
I
figured there must be a reason for the excitement so, since I’m a real
sucker, I opened the email. Inside, I learned that I am supposed to
take action and "tell Mayor Newsom and Supervisors Dufty, Chu and
Elsbernd to charge wholesalers for alcohol-related harm." Well, I do
run a local government Web site … but wait. What was alcohol-related
harm exactly?
The Marin Institute didn’t exactly share that
information in the email, so I jumped on their Web site and searched
around for a few minutes before I found this:
"Each year, the City and County of
San Francisco incurs costs resulting from alcohol use. These include
the costs of providing medical care for people with alcohol-related
illness, treatment and prevention costs, costs to the law enforcement
system, costs resulting from alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes and
other injuries, and the indirect costs associated with disability and
diminished capacity."
Back in the email, I read that, "The
San Francisco Controller’s Office recently commissioned a ‘nexus study’
that assessed alcohol costs to city services. That groundbreaking
report detailed $17.7 million in unreimbursed alcohol-related costs for
the city and county."
After reading the email, I sat and
stared at my computer screen for 30 seconds or so. The $17.7 million
seemed hefty at first. But everything is relative so I quickly went to
Google and found out that the city’s proposed budget is roughly $6.5 billion for next year.
So here’s my problem: How much will the city lose when its economy’s biggest industry takes such a drastic tax blow?
Governments
at the federal, state and local level already take more than $2 dollars
in taxes for every $1 the industry earns in profits. Plus, San
Francisco’s hospitality industry is already suffering.
The
proposed alcohol fee would be imposed at the point of wholesale, which
will knock up prices to restaurants, hotels and bars – and eventually
consumers. This leads to shrinking sales, shrinking wages and
benefits, and eventual job cuts. (Also, note that the majority of those
in the industry may not hold a college degree or an ability to find
another job – not a fact, but common sense.)
I’m not an
economist – though I do know a few good ones – but that chain of
damages would seem to be drastically worse in costs to the city than
the $17 million figure touted by the Marin Institute.
At
this point, I started wondering who or what the Marin Institute was and
why they cared so much about increasing alcohol taxes – even to the
point of sending me an email about it.
I
checked back with their Web site to figure it out and it didn’t take
long to realize the organization’s motivation. It’s written right on
their Web site:
"The
Marin Institute envisions communities free of the alcohol industry’s
negative influence and an alcohol industry that does not harm the
public’s health."
Oh … I get it now.
They hate
alcohol and don’t want it around. Fair enough, but why weren’t they
open from the start? The email should have read: "We are against
alcohol and we don’t want you to drink it."
The Marin
Institute isn’t looking out for the best interest of the city of San
Francisco or its economy. It has its own interests.
And
if their true goal is to stop us from drinking alcohol, then they must
understand that this tax is going to have a dramatic effect on reducing
sales, right?
Sounds like they are making the argument for why this additional alcohol fee would be a terrible idea.
Tricky email … you almost got me.
James Spencer can be reached at [email protected]