People who would never consider throwing an aluminum can or wad of paper on the street won't flinch at flicking a cigarette onto the ground, where ever they may stand. San Francisco's
Mayor Gavin Newsom is considering tacking on a fee for cigarettes bought within the city limits that will go to pay for butt toss clean up:
Today Mayor Gavin Newsom proposed a fee on cigarettes sold in San
Francisco. The fee will recover the cost of cleaning up cigarette
litter on sidewalks and in gutters.
"All litter creates unnecessary costs for the city and its
taxpayers," said Mayor Newsom. "Cigarette butts are a big part of the
problem."
This year, the City’s annual litter revealed that cigarette-related
litter makes up 25% of all litter found on sidewalks in gutters. City
government spends $44,282,843 per year picking up litter in San
Francisco, and $10,694,425 per year is directly attributable to
cigarette litter.
A nexus study will be finalized on Friday, May 22 that will document
the relationship between these costs and the incidence of tobacco
litter; preliminary results indicate that the per pack fee will be 33
cents a pack.
Newsom will include this fee as a line item in his June 1 budget and
will introduce legislation to enact a regulatory fee to recover these
costs from the consumers of cigarettes. Retailers will be responsible
for reporting and remitting the collected fee back to the City on a
regular basis.
The collected revenue will go back to City departments charged with collecting litter.
San Francisco doesn't exactly make it easy to smoke cigarettes, so those who do are probably pretty committed. Do you think you will see a slump in cigarette sales if this proposal goes through? You gonna pay it?
[Photo by permanently scatterbrained]
