DATE: Sunday, September 14, 1997            TAG: 9709140088

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   77 lines

NORFOLK'S PLAN: IF YOU LIGHT UP, PAY UP THE TAX ON A PACK OF CIGARETTES MAY RISE TO 10 CENTS AS CITY TRIES TO OFFSET A CUT IN NEIGHBORHOOD FUNDS.

Under a plan to raise money to improve the appearance of neighborhoods, the City Council may ask smokers to cough up as much as another dime for a pack of cigarettes.

Among those who puff the golden weed, and the merchants who sell it, there are plenty of opinions on the idea to increase the tax, now 25 cents per pack.

There are the cynical: ``It doesn't surprise me,'' said Norfolk resident Butch Hamman, a smoker since cigarettes were only 15 cents a pack. ``Any way they can think of to increase revenue, they'll do it.''

There are those who wouldn't pay more and might kick the habit: ``I need to quit. It'd be a little more incentive, I guess,'' said Margaret Horn, a smoker for more than 20 years.

There are those who could lose sales: ``I don't want the people who support our business to endure another tax,'' said Charlie Brown, manager of Emerson's Fine Tobacco on Granby Street. ``It seems to me that anything people enjoy doing, they'll find a way to tax it. About the only thing they don't tax is sex.''

Despite expected opposition to a tax increase that would single out smokers, some council membersfavor it. The only question seems to be, by how much - a dime, a nickel or somewhere in between? Council members have talked about putting a tax increase into effect as early as December.

Residents can put in their 10 cents' worth Tuesday, at a public hearing at 2:30 p.m. in council chambers in City Hall.

Vice Mayor Herbert M. Collins Sr. proposed the tax increase in May, on the same day that the council passed a tight 1997-98 budget with a 35 percent reduction in money for neighborhood improvements. That cut amounted to about $2.3 million.

Collins, who estimates that he sells about 40 cartons of cigarettes a week at his family-owned Long's Market on Ballentine Boulevard, said he would be willing to suffer a drop in sales in exchange for helping neighborhoods.

``The need is there,'' Collins said. ``We need some revenue for neighborhoods to do things the budget didn't allow us to do this time, things like street paving, lighting, curbing.''

City officials say a potential use of the extra money could be to eliminate neighborhood blight by speeding up efforts to demolish condemned or neglected property.

An ``issues and options'' paper presented to council members recently said ``a number of structures have been identified that contribute to blight,'' most of them in the neighborhoods of Park Place, Huntersville, Lamberts Point, Ocean View and Ballentine.

Officials estimate that a 5-cent increase in the tax would pump in an additional $521,000 in revenue during the first year, enough to demolish 35 to 65 buildings.

The revenue has dropped steadily as the price of cigarettes continues to rise and people buy fewer of them. In fiscal year 1996, for example, the tax produced $4.5 million. But in the '97 fiscal year, which ended June 31, the 25-cent tax generated $3.8 million.

The revenue probably will continue to decline as cigarette prices increase, officials say, and smokers either quit or buy cigarettes in localities where they're cheaper.

A pack of cigarettes in Hampton Roads now costs about $2 on average. Soon it'll cost more: Congress in July authorized a 15-cent increase in the federal tax on cigarettes to underwrite expanded health care for children.

In the region, Norfolk's cigarette tax now is slightly below the 27-cent-per-pack average. Hampton is tops with a 35-cent tax; Suffolk has the lowest, 20 cents. Chesapeake in May boosted its cigarette tax by 5 cents, to 25, to raise more money.

Councilman W. Randy Wright also favors raising the cigarette tax as long as the money is dedicated to neighborhoods and not lost in general operating funds.

Besides providing extra dollars to build communities, Wright said, he hopes boosting the tax would encourage people to quit smoking - even if it means less money for the city.

``I think there is a growing intolerance with smoking,'' Wright said. ``Every day there's new evidence about the dangers of it. I hope that this induces 1,000 people to quit smoking. Then I'll feel like I've accomplished something.''

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