Tobacco Bust Not Worth Effort

Susan Moller was right about the recent crackdown on Washington smokers who try to escape the state’s exorbitant cigarette tax: “It stinks.”

Not only does the myopic sting operation by the Liquor Control Board create border tension, but it transforms law-abiding citizens, like Moller, 46, of Mead, into petty criminals. What’s next? Is Washington going to collar residents who shop at the Factory Outlets in Post Falls to collect Washington’s 8-cent sales tax? Are the revenuers going to measure gas levels in vehicles leaving and entering Washington to ensure that Evergreen State motorists pay their gas taxes?

Or will state policy makers come to their senses?

Yes, the Legislature should worry that Washington is losing $127 million annually in uncollected taxes on imported smokes. But that may be the cost of doing business in our mobile, interrelated world. This country would have a major problem if every state patrolled its borders and tried to collect every tax dollar due. Idaho, for example, loses 5 cents on every dollar that a Gem Stater pays for food in Washington. Should the Idaho Tax Commission man the Interstate 90 port of entry and cite Gem Staters who buy groceries at Costco? Of course not.

The law should be changed to allow Washington smokers to buy cigarettes anywhere for their own personal use. Incredibly, a Washingtonian can face a $250 fine and a day in court simply for buying a pack of cigarettes from an Idaho vending machine and then “smuggling” - Liquor Control’s word, not ours - it back across the border.

Washington’s onerous tax on cigarettes is the problem here. At 82.5 cents per pack, Washington’s tax ranks second in the country only to Alaska’s $1 per pack. Who can blame Spokane area smokers for slipping into Indian Country smoke shops, other states or military bases to save $5.50 per carton and more?

“The tax has made it too expensive for many distributors, wholesalers and retailers to sell these products in Washington state,” Ross Sockzehigh, Yakama Nation chairman, said last year after the state seized a shipment of cigarettes headed for Yakama smoke shops. “The state is its own worst enemy on this issue.”

Liquor Control Board agents said the sting operation was designed to raise awareness about state tobacco tax laws. We suggest the bureaucrats who ordered the yuletide bust raise their own awareness by viewing our web site (Spokane.net), where dozens of subscribers criticize them.

The cigarette bust was overkill. It’s the type of thing that drives a wedge between states and border areas, like Spokane and Kootenai counties, whose residents work and play together, and regularly cross the state line to shop, entertain themselves and dine. It’s something someone in Olympia with too much time on his hands would think up.