Local paper did a story on Prop 82 which seeks to increase the tobacco tax by 178%. At the same time it will kill the local B&M's who will have to pay the tax on their inventory retroactively. THe paper had gone into our local B&M that sells only cigars, pipe tobacco and one brand of loose cigarette tobacco. THey took nice pictures and interviewed him and a number of us who stated our opposition as the tax tied cigarettes to cigars. Well the article ran. Pictures of our guy smoking a cigar and saying he will be out of a job. The whole article was cigarette bashing. No mention of cigars. No mention of the cigar shop plight. Just how bad cigarettes are and how good the tax will be for the state coffers. Ten of us wrote responses. Not one published. Who did they publish? One from the local anti smoking league. Sucks.
