Proposed ‘sin’ taxes drawing criticism

Lamont targeting nicotine, alcohol, single-use plastic bags and sugary drinks

Kathy Schulte buys the same bottle of wine every week, and she knows exactly how much it costs. A little over $13.

And, yes, she said she would notice if the price went up due to a bottle tax.

But, no, it won’t stop her from buying that bottle of wine every week.

“I just don’t know if taxing people will really make them stop doing those things ... I know I won’t,” Schulte said, referring to a series of so-called “sin taxes” that Gov. Ned Lamont plans to include in his budget proposal to the General Assembly later this week.

The taxes include sugary drinks, electronic and regular cigarettes and single-use plastic bags, as well as deposits on alcoholic beverages. He’s also proposing raising the age to buy cigarettes and e-cigarettes from 18 to 21.

“These are the sins of the 21st century,” Lamont said during a taped appearance on Capitol Report, WTNH-TV8’s political affairs program over the weekend.

His chief of staff, Ryan Drajewicz later told reporters the taxes “aren’t about generating revenue, but about changing behavior” that negatively affects public health and the environment.

But laws aimed at changing behavior (often dubbed nanny state laws) are controversial.

Though they don’t explicitly take away a person’s ability to choose unhealthy behaviors like smoking, drinking or enjoying a 32-ounce Big Gulp loaded with sugar, it does make

those vices more difficult to access by raising prices, and that can feel like the government is dictating behavior rather than simply discouraging it.

Schulte, a stay-at-home dog mom whose husband works in corporate marketing, was visiting a dog park Monday in the newly developed Harbor Point area of Stamford where she lives. She doesn’t think raising the price on cigarettes or sugary drinks will discourage people from consuming them — just as a bottle tax won’t keep her from enjoying a glass of wine — but she’s not sure it’s the government’s place to try to price people out of bad habits, anyway.

“I just think it’s already really expensive to live here and I think there’s a little too much government already,” she said.

Kailey Capozzi, a Westport teacher who was also visiting the Harbor Point dog park, is more on board with the idea — she said she thinks the idea of taxing unhealthy items is interesting — but, like Schulte, she’s not sure it would work to change behavior.

“I think they could do it in other ways,” Capozzi said. “Maybe spend the money on marketing and education instead of just taxing. Not many people read the labels at a grocery store — they don’t know how much sugar is in it anyway.”

Downtown Stamford, a couple miles away from the shiny new Harbor Point area, is dotted with convenience stores, selling all the vices most people know aren’t good for them — cigarettes and e-cigarettes, sodas and sports drinks, lottery tickets, beer, chips and other heavily processed snacks — and not much else.

Bill Benison, the manager at Star Wine and Spirits on Bedford Street, stopped selling cigarettes three years ago. As he rung up a customer’s six-pack of beer Monday afternoon, the customer asked if he could buy cigarettes but Benison had to send him across the street to a convenience store.

“I’ve never been a smoker and I definitely don’t encourage it,” Benison said after the customer left. “But I stopped selling them three years ago after the state started making more money on them than we did. It just wasn’t worth it anymore ... It’s getting harder and harder for small businesses to survive and raising these taxes makes it harder to do business for everyone. People will just buy it somewhere else.”