Students revolt over beer tax proposal
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008A group of Bay Area College Republicans took to the streets of San Jose Friday evening to protest a subject near and dear to them - beer.
More to the point, they wanted to rant about a state lawmaker’s proposed tax on beer manufacturers that would add nearly $2 to the price of a six-pack as a way to help the state plug its giant budget deficit.
“This is a tax on poor students,” said Leigh Wolf, 21, of the San Francisco State University Republicans. “They’re using a bunch of studies to justify this beer tax, but you don’t need a study to know college students drink a lot of beer. This is our way, after a long day of school and work, to sit down and relax.”
At the afternoon protest outside the office of Assemblyman Jim Beall, D-San Jose, about 50 students stood at a busy downtown intersection waving signs that read “Students Opposed to Unjust Taxation!” and “No Taxe$” as one student on a bullhorn chanted “No taxation on intoxication!”
Passers-by honked their horns in support and one man in a blue Chevy truck rolled down his window to scream, “Don’t tax my beer!”
The proposed tax on brewers would swell the tax per gallon from the current 20 cents to $2.88. That’s an increase of 30 cents per can or bottle and $1.80 a six-pack
Beall, who proposed the beer tax earlier this month, said it would generate up to $2 billion a year to help defray the high costs of crime prevention, health services and programs that prevent addiction and underage drinking.
“Drinking among college students has been identified as a real health problem,” Beall said. “One in five kids binge drink regularly and 97,000 college students are victims of a sexual assault or a date rape annually due to alcohol use.”
