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Alcohol Tax Hike Weighed by Health Department
By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 25, 2010
Modified Feb 25, 2010
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By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 25, 2010
Modified Feb 25, 2010
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A deputy commissioner for the Health Department said yesterday that the DOH is considering a tax increase on alcohol, which could increase the price of a bottle of beer as much as ten cents. After hearing about the possibility, the Daily News rushed to interview barflies on Eighth Avenue, where the news was received calmly and rationally. "They tried that before, it is called temperance," declared Marc Jacobs (ha), on his way into the Molly Wee Pub. Another patron at The Blarney Stone, Phil Carroll, sarcastically asked, "That worked with cigarettes, right?" Well, Phil, it probably did: 300,000 fewer adult New Yorkers smoke than in 2002, which may have a little something to do with price hikes and indoor smoking bans.
A Health Department spokesperson issued this statement, "The City does not have a proposal to raise the alcohol tax. The Health Department is always looking for ways to reduce preventable illness and death." The DOH estimates that alcohol use is responsible for 1,700 deaths a year in NYC, and reducing consumption has been a long-term priority. (Here's a pdf detailing what the DOH is working on as part of their Take Care New York 2012 strategy.) "The surest pathway to changing behavior is through the wallet," billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg remarked last month while discussing soda and cigarette taxes.
The Daily News speculates that the DOH may "bump the total tax on a beer to more than 17 cents, a steep fee on a $2 longneck, while a bottle of Cabernet would climb up to nearly 50 cents." There is not currently a city tax on wine, but New Yorkers pay up 7.4 cents of taxes on a bottle of beer, 36.9 cents on a bottle of wine and $3.61 on a standard 750-ml bottle of hard liquor. Of course, one can't prove that higher taxes directly lead to reduced consumption, but this much is certain: the city made $23.5 million off alcohol last year.
Tagged
alcohol
booze
health department
liquor
tax
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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