Illinois’ smoking age remains at 18

I almost find myself agreeing with Gov. Bruce Rauner, who recently used his veto power to kill off a bill that would have raised the age to 21 at which a person could legally buy a package of cigarettes or other tobacco products.

RAUNER: A VETO to smoking age hike

Currently, people have to be capable of showing they’re 18 or older in order to purchase cigarettes, or even those smokeless devices that supposedly allow one to experience the “joy” of smoking without exposure to tobacco.

RAUNER, IN ISSUING his veto of the measure, said that while he has no problem trying to discourage people from smoking, he doesn’t think this law will do a thing to achieve that goal.

In fact, Rauner is trying to view this as an Illinois economy issue – in that it would harm retailers who sell cigarettes by limiting the number of people they can legitimately sell their product to.

The governor actually thinks many people would just turn to surrounding states (if possible) to buy their cigarettes, since places like Indiana aren’t the least bit inclined to want to reduce their smoking ages.

In fact, the idea of people venturing across State Line Road to Indiana in order to make their cigarette purchases (at shops with generic names such as Smokes) is already a common practice. It would just have even younger people thinking in terms of doing their business elsewhere when it comes to cigarette purchases.

PERSONALLY, I’M AWARE that most people don’t even wait until turning 18 these days before picking up the nicotine habit. I recall my own school days when kids were usually around 12 or 13 when they first felt compelled to start smoking.

I can recall Junior High School days when those inclined to want to smoke knew exactly which local businesses (usually local gas stations, the grungier they were the better) would sell cigarettes to kids – and which were not.

Which means I don’t doubt there are some people more interested in their financial bottom line than in anybody’s health to continue their current practices – regardless of any stinkin’ law.

Are shops like this one in Hammond, Ind., the only real beneficiary of reducing the smoking age?

It may actually elevate the idea of selling cigarettes to minors (in some mini-minds) as somehow being a gesture toward personal freedom.

WHICH IS NONSENSE, of course. But it is one that is real.

It would take more than a change in the smoking age in order to actually stop teenagers so inclined to do so to actually not want to pick up a nicotine habit.

In my own case, cigarettes (and smoking, in general) was never a habit I ever sought to acquire. It was actually my father who (indirectly) made me not want to smoke because of the example he set.

No, he wasn’t any sort of tobacco teetotaler. My father was a cigarette smoker as a young man, and I can remember as a young child how much I hated the way he smelled as a result.

ACTUALLY, I WAS around many people who smoked in my family. But when I remember back, I think of the odor of my father as being the most repulsive.

My father has long-ago given up this habit, which I must admit makes being around him a bit more pleasant. But it’s such that I tend to think of being around people who smoke as being a tad too disgusting to endure.

So perhaps the key to discouraging cigarette smoking (and use of tobacco in general) is to make young people realize just how repulsive their action truly is.

Because actions such as what was pondered by the General Assembly this year (and vetoed by Rauner) is only going to make some people think of cigarettes as some sort of “achievement” in life they will gain the right to once they are “grown up.”

  -30-

Will ‘da Judge’ buy “Fast Eddie” claim his witnesses are too old to remember?

I understand that Edward R. Vrdolyak has no desire to go to prison.

VRDOLYAK: Trying to get charges dismissed

The one-time Cook County Democratic chairman and City Council member who led the vocal opposition to then-Mayor Harold Washington has already done one stint as a “guest” of the government, and sure doesn’t want to go back there ever again.

BUT I FIND myself intrigued by the line of defense that Vrdolyak is trying to put up for himself.

Vrdolyak spent the bulk of 2011 in a federal prison work camp in Terre Haute, Ind., following his conviction on charges related to real estate transactions in the Gold Coast neighborhood.

Two years ago, he was hit with another round of indictments – for his involvement in the settlement of a national lawsuit against the tobacco industry back in the 1990s. It resulted in a $9.2 billion payout by “Big Tobacco,” and Vrdolyak managed to enrich himself significantly.

So much so that federal prosecutors say he did too well, to the point of being criminal. They use the word “unauthorized” to describe it.

BUT VRDOLYAK CONTENDS he didn’t do anything illegal, and in fact had the blessing of political people (including then-Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan) for his conduct.

WASHINGTON: Eddie's legacy exceed Harold

He’s trying to get a judge to dismiss the charges, with his own attorneys filing motions claiming that the people who could testify under oath that Vrdolyak’s legal activities were truly legitimate aren’t capable of doing so.

They point out one person who was fully aware of Vrdolyak is now dead, while another suffers from severe dementia. A third would be Jim Ryan himself, although the one-time Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate suffers from his own ailments that would make it impossible for him to be called upon to testify.

All this may be true. But I will be amazed if any judge out there would be inclined to dismiss the case on these grounds.

BECAUSE IT WOULD truly create a circumstance where someone could escape the legal system and “justice” because of the passage of time.

RYAN: Could Jim 'clear' Vrdolyak?

And when it comes to Vrdolyak, I’m sure the kind of people most eager to see him obtain another criminal conviction and prison term (one most likely long enough that the 80-year-old would die in prison) will not want to allow for any reason to come up that would let him escape justice.

For the politico known as “Fast Eddie” is the man who will forevermore be remembered for the way he openly led a resistance to Washington’s election in 1983 as the city’s first black mayor.

That was something some people would want forevermore celebrated. The fact that Vrdolyak was able to tie up in knots just about everything Washington tried to accomplish during the first few years of his mayoral term is something they will forevermore be bitter about.

TO THEM, THE only true justice will be if Vrdolyak gains as his political legacy a record of recidivism. To become one of the few people in Chicago political people who wind up with multiple convictions and prison terms would be the only true justice to those individuals.

Seriously, most people with political corruption convictions wind up withering away into nothingness. It would be Vrdolyak and someone like one-time alderman Ambrosio Medrano who would have records of returns to prison.

MEDRANO: In Vrdolyak's league?

But a part of me can’t help but wonder if Vrdolyak’s attorneys have a point about the 20-year delay between the actions and the bringing of an indictment “dramatically, and even fatally hindering (Vrdolyak) from establishing that fact to the jury.”

All of which makes me think no matter how a judge ultimately rules, this is going to be a criminal case that will leave some people seriously p-o’ed about its outcome and complaining for life about the lack of justice.

  -30-

21? Try 12, Mr. Mayor

I can’t help but laugh at the proposal put forth by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to raise the age at which anyone in Chicago can buy cigarettes.

EMANUEL: Looking out for kids, or self?

For Hizzoner seems to think he can say that no one under 21 can buy a pack of smokes, and it will be so.

PERSONALLY, I REMEMBER that it was about the time I turned 12 that my peers started using cigarettes – and I don’t mean the kid who takes a dare to puff on a lit cigarette while his “friends” gawk in awe and amazement at his “bravado.”

That kid is usually about 8. He (or she) really doesn’t know any better.

I’m talking about someone who starts feeling “the need” to have a cigarette. Yes, it really does happen that young.

So 21? By that time, someone who has taken up the habit is an addict (yes, I use that word purposely) who knows the ways and means of obtaining their preferred tobacco product.

THE IDEA THAT someone who’s ONLY 19 or 20 will somehow be stopped from smoking is nothing but a joke. One of those silly ideas that political people come up with from time to time, and we suspect that deep down even they don’t believe it to be true.

But Emanuel felt compelled to tell us Wednesday how he wants to raise the smoking age to 21 (to match the drinking age, I suppose).

It is part of a larger-scale proposal that includes increases on the municipal taxes charged on cigars, chewing tobacco and those roll-your-own cigarette products (for people who believe they can somehow create a better product than the mass-produced death sticks). One that Emanuel says could raise about $6 million more I revenue for city government.

Of course, if you’re cutting off about eight years of age worth of smokers (officially three years of age, since people under 18 aren’t supposed to be buying cigarettes in the first place), that means you’re theoretically selling fewer cigarettes.

THERE ALREADY ARE the people who are predicting how pointless this whole proposal is. Most likely people who are sucking back a puff of tobacco fumes (and maybe even coughing up a hack or two) while making their angry pronouncement.

Now I must admit to not smoking myself. It’s a habit I never picked up, not even when I was 12. Something about the smell of tobacco never appealed to me, and the smell and sight of cigarette ash downright disgusts me.

But I do have childhood memories of my “peers” discussing amongst ourselves which places were safe to sneak a smoke, and which local businesses would look the other way and sell a pack or two of cigarettes to minors.

Now I’m sure that Emanuel thinks he’s making some grand pronouncement about public health. Perhaps he thinks he’s going to warrant national praise from health-related officials for taking such a “bold” stance to protect our children.

NONSENSE. THE IDEA that Emanuel thinks an age limit is somehow going to stop smoking for anyone is way too naïve. Why 21? Perhaps the mayor just reversed the numerals of "age 12" similar to how Carlton Fisk went from uniform number 27 to number 72 when he switched from Boston to the Chicago White Sox.

I could envision a scenario in which the people who now are calling for Rahm to be impeached, recalled or publicly flogged (and are probably sucking back a puff or two on a cigarette while doing so) will now have their kids joining in the political action.

This strikes me as being more of an effort to detract attention from all the rants and rages being spewed these days to use police conduct towards African-American people as a reason to depose the mayor they couldn’t beat back on Election Day last year.

Instead, it likely gives them something to laugh at while they continue to walk picket lines demanding the removal of Rahm Emanuel from office.

  -30-

When will pop become verboten?

I can remember the day when those “The Real Cost” television spots that portray cigarette smoking as a disgusting, vile and all-around grotesque habit would have been considered downright subversive.

Satchel avoided fried foods, should he lose the pop bottle?

It is the changing attitude of our society that those who smoke are now looked upon as weak-willed and spineless – otherwise they’d have no problem quitting something that is going to wind up rotting away their lungs.

NOW IN MY case, that is one habit I never managed to acquire. Something about the smell just always turned me off.

But I am a person who enjoys the occasional Coca-Cola. Or a 7-Up or Dr. Pepper from time to time.

I always suspected that too much in the way of carbonated beverages probably wasn’t good for one’s health. Then again, too much of any one thing isn’t good. Balance, and moderation, are the keys to truly taking care of oneself.

But I now wonder how long it will be before those vintage television spots of young people singing how they’d “like to buy the world a Coke” will seem as ridiculous and absurd as those old cigarette ads that purported to have medical doctors endorsing specific tobacco products.

THINK I’M KIDDING? My thought is reinforced by the fact that the people at City Hall are contemplating a penny-per-ounce tax hike on syrups and powders, along with canned and bottled drinks.

It used to be thought of as healthy and refreshing

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the Illinois Restaurant Association is planning a lobbying effort against the tax hike – pointing out there already are two other taxes that apply to soft drinks.

Those include a 9 percent fountain drink tax on syrup and a 3 percent tax on cans and bottles.

The restaurant association contends that bolstering the cost of that 2-liter bottle of pop or can of Coke will wind up hurting sales to the point that people will wind up losing their jobs. Raising this tax to bolster municipal revenues will wind up doing greater harm to the economy – or so the association says.

The future of pop advertising?

WHICH STRIKES ME as being similar to the arguments that get made whenever a government entity decides it needs to raise money by raising the taxes on tobacco products – which already make the cost of buying a pack of cigarettes much higher in Chicago than anywhere else!

We hear how it is defeatist because raising the price of cigarettes will make them too expensive, and wind up backfiring against the level of revenue that is expected to be raised.

We also hear how we’d be doing society a greater favor by discouraging some people from smoking in the first place. Are we going to start hearing talk about how we’re bolstering the health of Chicagoans by making them want to drink something other than pop?

How long will it be before some people start claiming it is some sort of Constitutionally-protected Freedom of Expression (as in the First Amendment) to drink Coca-Cola without being told how bad it is for them?

OR IN THE case of some deluded people, their Pepsi Cola (which was just always too sweet for my own taste).

I realize the level of sugar that goes into a serving of pop can be fattening. Although I think the key to dealing with it is more exercise. Or perhaps more doses of ice-chilled water – which I’ll admit to personally enjoying just because I always feel like it helps to clean out my insides.

How long will it be before some advocacy group takes up the cause of carbonated beverages, depicting their drinkers as being some sort of rotting-away bumpkins who guzzle down too much “sodee?”

Or maybe they’ll dig one-time Pittsburgh Steeler “Mean Joe” Greene out of retirement to make a commercial where he denounces that day where he ever took that kid’s bottle of Coke?

  -30-

Another blast from Chi political past; could ‘Fast Eddie’ return to prison?

It almost feels like the “G-men” of Chicago are engaging in Old Home Week lately.

VRDOLYAK: From before the feds paid him mind

First, we learn that former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert – one of the few Illinoisans to ever rise to that exulted position – was indicted on charges he violated federal laws concerning bank withdrawals; supposedly to come up with money to pay off someone else to keep quiet about long-ago wrongdoings.

NOW, WE’RE GETTING word that former 10^th Ward Alderman and Cook County Democratic Chairman-who-turned-Republican Edward R. Vrdolyak is the subject of federal investigators.

As of now, Vrdolyak isn’t charged with anything.

But Daniel Soso, an attorney from suburban Alsip, is indicted on federal tax evasion charges. The Chicago Sun-Times reported Sunday that the Soso indictment makes reference to an “Individual A” who may have been involved.

And the newspaper said it has sources contending that Vrdolyak is the aforementioned “Individual A” being referred to.

I PREVIOUSLY MADE reference to a similarity between Hastert and Vrdolyak in that both came to the attention of federal prosecutors long after their time on government payrolls was complete.

Vrdolyak already has served a 10-month prison term for charges contending that he arranged for a kickback in the sale price of a Gold Coast neighborhood building, in addition to any legal fees he would have been entitled to for his legal services.

MEDRANO: Not many pols get 2nd conviction

Is he now going to face the possibility of another prosecution? This one likely to produce a significant prison term? Is someone determined to see that Vrdolyak leaves this mortal realm of existence by being pronounced dead in a prison infirmary?

The newspaper says the latest case relates to the 1998 settlement of Illinois’ lawsuit against tobacco companies – a $9.1 billion payment, which means significant money.

PROSECUTORS ALLEGE THAT Vrdolyak, although not registered as one of the attorneys involved in the case, were paid a portion of the settlement; and did not comply with the regulations set by the state Attorney General’s office for receiving such payments.

HASTERT: Another pol facing not-relaxing retirement

So what should we think? Did Vrdolyak somehow get payments for work done under the table? Or for helping somebody to meet somebody else connected to the case?

We really don’t know what it is that Vrdolyak is purported to have done; other than that the “I” word is being flouted about – and that if he were to be prosecuted for something a second time, it would put “Fast Eddie” in a unique situation.

He and Abrosio Medrano, who also has separate convictions and wound up being returned to prison for a much lengthier sentence than his first stint of incarceration.

IS THAT GOING to become the Vrdolyak legacy? Or is he going to get the support of the East Side and other 10^th Ward residents who once relied on him to be their voice at City Hall – and some of whom still think of him as the person who “saved” their neighborhood.

Of course, what he was saving them from was what was represented by the election of Harold Washington as mayor. Which is why I’m sure there are some people who are more than glad to see Vrdolyak suffer these legal predicaments.

What this case is all going to come down to is trying to figure out what exactly constitutes a legal fee? Why shouldn’t Vrdolyak have received some money if he truly did legal work? I’ve already seen some Facebook commentary implying that prosecutors should, “leave Eddie alone.”

It is interesting that Vrdolyak’s attorney told the Sun-Times that the case was so long ago (17 years) and that his client is now 77; some people will feel sympathy for “Fast Eddie.” But will more be eager to see him carted off to prison yet again?

  -30-

No smokes in the car with kiddies?

The Illinois Senate gave its consideration to a measure that I’m sure was bound to infuriate a certain segment of our society – making it a ticketable offense for someone to light up a cigarette in their own automobile if, by chance, they happen to have kids in the car with them.

Personally, I find it to be a noble goal. I can remember as a kid finding it rather disgusting to be around people who smoked tobacco products. It is a large part of the reason why I never took up the habit myself.

BUT I’M NOT sure how such a ban could ever be realistically enforced unless we’re willing to give police unlimited powers to start searching our cars. And it wouldn’t shock me to learn that many of those cops are smokers themselves.

So it shouldn’t be a shock that when the bill in question, sponsored by state Sen. Ira Silverstein, D-Chicago, came up for a vote, it went down to an ignoble defeat.

A mere 8 state senators were in favor of the idea.

In my mind, I can hear the piercing whistle that some legislators used to make whenever a bill was on its way to defeat. That whistle intending to be a parody of the sound of bombs being dropped on the idea, thereby blowing it to smithereens.

SERIOUSLY, THE WAY a cop would have to enforce this would be to get up so close as to see if not only is someone smoking, but are there little children in the vehicle as well.

What it really means is that police would wind up having to pull over people based on their suspicions, and hope that they wind up catching enough people in the act of smoking-while-in-the-presence-of-children that they can get enough people to file charges against.

Considering that this likely would be a traffic offense of sorts, I doubt the fines would be sufficient enough to make all the time on the part of police officers worthwhile.

Then again, the fact that we’d have to put a certain amount of trust in police officers not to start pulling people over for whatever suspicions they have (then claim they suspected there was smoking taking place).

SHOULD IT REALLY then be a surprise that the state Senate’s black caucus was amongst the opponents?

State Sen. Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood, made it clear the caucus didn’t trust police enough to limit their searches for smokers with children to reasonable searches. They might wind up pulling over many black motorists, claiming there was a suspicion that tobacco products were somehow being inhaled.

Now I know some people don’t want to believe that anyone could legitimately not trust law enforcement. They’re going to be the ones who will now scream how ridiculous this all is.

But it may well be a sign of how big the gap is amongst certain people in our society in terms of trusting the police.

I REMEMBER ONE now-retired suburban police chief once telling me he seriously believed that the kind of people who went into law enforcement for a living are the elite of our society.

Others are quick to see a batch of thugs using their law enforcement authority to reinforce their own personal hang-ups.

The fact that this issue could even crop up is all the more reason we ought to be thankful that this particular piece of legislation (which likely will become an annual issue for the General Assembly to contemplate) didn’t go very far.

Because what’s the next step – we make it illegal for smokers to raise children?

  -30-

Will Walgreens become the Preferred Drug Store for cigarette smokers?

Will Walgreen's lengthy Chicago-area history help it keep business if tobacco products actually become an issue?

I have to admit to being somewhat amused this week by the announcement by CVS that they will stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products later this year.

It has me wondering if the business battle between newcomer CVS and long-time Chicago-area pharmaceutical retailer Walgreen’s will now turn to trying to gain a business advantage concerning those people who need to have their daily dose of “smokes.”

WILL CVS NOW try to claim a high moralistic attitude because they won’t sell cigarettes? Will they be the start of a trend in which the sight of all those racks of cigarette packs and cartons behind the cash register will become obsolete?

Or something you only see in a seedier sort of business?

Is that what Walgreen’s is destined to become? Since the Deerfield-based retailer indicated this week they do not plan to follow suit on cigarettes.

They’re adopting the line of logic used by convenience stores, gasoline stations and other businesses that include tobacco products on their shelves – they add to the financial bottom line in a way that can make the difference between being profitable or going out of business altogether.

HOW FAR WILL Walgreen’s be prepared to carry this decision out? Because they certainly want to be taken seriously in terms of health care issues.

In fact, there are those industry analysts who contend that CVS’ decision to drop cigarettes from their stores is less about a high-minded moral statement and more about a bottom-line business decision.

As in they can make more money ultimately by having various clinics, vaccination services and other health care options in their stores – services with which the sight of cigarette cartons would just be too much of a clash!

Personally, I don’t smoke. I never have. Just something about the smell was always so unappealing that I never felt compelled to try.

WHICH MAKES ME not so much appreciate a business that doesn’t encourage smoking, as much as dislike a business that does.

I have way too many memories of getting stuck in lines waiting to make a purchase because the person right ahead of me either can’t make up their mind what brand of cigarettes they want, or (more often) are getting all worked up into a frenzy that demands to see a store manager because the sales clerk can’t figure out which of the variety of brands it is that the customer wants.

Invariably, it winds up being a small purchase I was making (sometimes, as little as purchasing a newspaper or two – yes, I still prefer ink on paper to this format).

Which makes such a purchase a bigger deal than it has to be!

THERE’S ALSO THE case that I currently live at a place with both a Walgreen’s and a CVS store within three blocks of me. I can’t say I favored either one of them in the past.

But I may well have to start spending more money at the CVS if this tobacco sales issue actually becomes a controversy.

Because I’m sure the people who want to view their cigarettes as some sort of civil rights issue (never mind the real issues of our society) will be more than willing to make a stink about this – and not just because their clothes and breath reeks of inhaling too much tobacco fumes throughout their lives.

There are times when I wonder if people are willing to “fight to the death” for their cigarette habit as intensely as those who are making an issue of “concealed carry. Perhaps it’s the same people – a cigarette pack in the shirt pocket and pistol tucked in the hip.

OR MAYBE A cigarette pack and pistol tucked in the purse?

While the rest of us consider fighting for issues that really matter in our daily lives. Including which place might help us look out better for our health.

Could that now be CVS?

  -30-

Skeptical of the smoking stats!

5,500 and 6,400. The two new statistics that I’m not quite sure I believe.

Or, even if they are true, if they really mean all that much.

THOSE ARE THE numbers that aides to Mayor Rahm Emanuel were using on Tuesday to try to justify the proposal to raise the tax on a package of cigarettes by 75 cents.

City Health Department officials admit that this new tax would result in cigarettes costing more in Chicago than anywhere else in the United States. Which they say is a good thing.

Because it would persuade some 5,500 adults to quit smoking (because they can’t afford it anymore) and some 6,400 teenagers to never start smoking in the first place.

It’s my own gut instinct that says people who are determined to smoke are going to, regardless of the official price of a pack of cigarettes. Although even if those number of people do wind up not smoking because it becomes too expensive, is it really worth that much.

BECAUSE WE’RE TALKING about some not-quite 12,000 people out of a population of 2.7 million in the city, or some more than 8 million in the Chicago metro area.

The 11,900 that city officials are saying will not smoke? That’s a pretty insignificant number.

Personally, I’d respect city government more if they’d just come out and admit they want to gouge the people who are so addicted to tobacco that they can’t get by without their two-pack-a-day fix!

At least that would be honest.

NO MATTER HOW much they want to talk about saving $235 million in long-term health costs from problems caused by smoking, they really want the added tax revenue.

There are many areas to which the money – about $10 million per year, city officials say – could be put to use.

Including the child health care programs that city officials say they want to support. A noble goal.

But I wonder at what point do we start seeing people taking extreme measures to avoid buying cigarettes in Chicago? Will it turn out to be like gasoline – where anybody who can possibly avoid using a gas pump in the city limits does so?

WILL WE GET those places selling “cheap smokes” just across the city limits/state line in Hammond, Ind., and surrounding Hoosier communities seeing a sudden surge in business.

Or what of the places within the city – usually in the seedier neighborhoods that most need help but don’t’ get it – where locals know which stores will sell them “loosies.”

As in cigarettes sold individually.

It’s most definitely an illegal act. But there are those people who think they’re Al Capone reincarnated and that they’re “providing a service” to people who merely want to indulge their taste for tobacco.

AND WHEN IT comes to wanting something easily accessible and cheap, some people are more than willing to overlook the legalities of any issue.

As for me, I don’t smoke. It is just one habit I never picked up on. I wish it were practical to think of tax increases like this as a way to seriously decline the number of people who feel compelled to smoke cigarettes. I’m just realistic enough to know that life isn’t quite so easy.

If only the addition of another tax were the way to do it.

Instead, we’re going to get these taxes going higher and higher and some people will pay it. But many others will manage to find their alternatives.

WHICH WILL RESULT in no one getting paid a tax. Because avoiding the tax will be the whole point of the purchase.

The healthcare issues and other problems related to smoking will remain. But the increased tax revenues just won’t be there to back up a solution.

Isn’t that a pleasant thought for the day!

  -30-

21 smoking age? Who’s kidding whom!

I recall a conversation I once overheard between I couple of guys I knew – one of whom was upset that a local gas station would no longer sell him cigarettes without giving him a hassle.

Got to get to them young to stop smoking

The two guys then went through a list of local businesses, literally identifying which ones were willing to provide the tobacco products with ease, which would not and which would require a certain amount of dickering around with the sales clerk!

THIS MAY SOUND like a picayune matter. Something rather petty and a complete waste of conversational time.

Except when one considers that this conversation took place about a third of a century ago (I really am getting that old) back when I was in Junior High School.

Which means I was 12. So were the other guys – neither of whom was a really close friend. But they weren’t exactly enemies or hostile toward me either, just like many people we all encounter in our lives.

This moment of my life popped into my head when I read the newspaper headlines over the stories saying that 12^th Ward Alderman George Cardenas wanting to impose a new city ordinance creating a minimum age of 21 to be able to purchase cigarettes.

THE IDEA THAT anybody is waiting until anywhere near the age of 21 before deciding whether to take up smoking is such a silly thought. What a joke!

It almost makes me want to laugh something along the lines of Nelson Muntz from “The Simpsons” – who would probably then light up a cigarette and take a few puffs to show how ridiculous the concept truly is.

The idea that raising the minimum age at which someone can legitimately buy a package of cigarettes from 18 to 21 will do anything to reduce the amount of cigarette smoking is just downright absurd.

It really was at that much younger age that my generation picked up on the tobacco habit. If anything, I was always the exception in finding the very smell of cigarettes and sight of stubbed cigarette ash to be repulsive that I never took up the habit.

MOST OF THE people I knew who got into smoking started out at that very young age.

By the time they were 18 or 21 or whatever, they were too-well hooked on the habit that quitting was quite an ordeal.

While I am aware that there are statistics indicating that fewer young people are actually smoking on a regular basis, my gut reaction tells me that they are getting attracted to the nicotine habit at the same young age.

Heck, I have a 10-year-old niece whom I wouldn’t be surprised to see smoking someday (her mother, also my step-sister, smokes). Although I was pleasantly pleased one time when she happened to be in my automobile (a 16-year-old Saturn sedan) and she got offended at the sight of a cigarette lighter in the dashboard.

NEWER CARS JUST label that device as an outlet for the cellphone charger – which is how I use it.

But it makes me happy to know that someone has tried to put a message in her head that the use of tobacco products isn’t the nicest of habits one can acquire.

If we really want to reduce the number of young people who take up smoking, we have to get at them at that young age – 10, 12. Thirteen may be as old as one can get and have the message have any impact.

Focusing on 21? Cardenas might as well be one of those people who thinks that you can make people healthier by eliminating the 32-oz. tubs of pop at the movie theater!

  -30-

Cook County tax hikes could inadvertently boost quality of local life

It amused me to learn Friday that Cook County government has come up with a balanced budget plan for the upcoming year – one that will put a tax increase on the cost of a deadly little object.



I'd rather remain on the Illinois side of the state line, away from this Hammond, Ind.-based business. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda



No, I’m not talking about county board President Toni Preckwinkle’s expressed desire to tax the cost of bullets. She had to back off of that dream a while back – or else risk turning the county board into a battleground for the National Rifle Association and their allies.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED is that Preckwinkle got the overwhelming majority of the county board to increase the county’s share of taxes on tobacco products.

An extra $1 per pack of cigarettes – which county officials say they hope raises another $25.6 million during 2013. That will help raise some of the revenue that will be needed if the county government is to maintain all the programs (particularly with regards to health care) that people have come to expect from them.

Of course, we’re going to hear the “stink” of people complaining in the southeastern portion of the county.

I’m talking the 10^th Ward, along with Thornton and Bloom townships – those areas that have municipalities whose eastern boundary is actually State Line Road (a.k.a., the Illinois/Indiana border).

THEY’RE GOING TO complain about the flood of people who will rush across the state border to make their cigarette purchases – usually loading up with cartons by the trunk full.

I don’t doubt that it will happen. There are far too many of those little storefronts with signs out front advertising businesses named “Smokes” or other cutesy monikers – all of whom claim as their advantage the fact that you can save yourselves a buck or so per pack of cigarettes (along with firecrackers and cheap pop) IF you purchase them there.

Personally, I find many of those storefronts to be so skuzzy in décor that I really wouldn’t want to be seen hanging around them. But I suppose some people are so eager to save themselves some cash on their tobacco habit that they’ll make the drive to the Hoosier State.

Which I would think becomes a “plus” for the image of Illinois and Chicago – the nicotine addicts are fleeing us for somewhere else.

BUT SOME WILL try to claim it as a loss for Cook County – even though it ignores the fact that there are large swaths of the county that are too far away from the county line for such a trip to be practical.

Kind of like those people who use up gasoline while driving around for a place that sells gas for a nickel a gallon cheaper!

Of course, Preckwinkle got her “shot” in at firearms. The county might not be charging a special tax on ammunition (aside from the sales tax already in place). But there will still be a $25 fee charged on the purchase of each firearm.

Which will still infuriate the NRA-types, even though the number of firearms dealers in Chicago proper is zero. Which makes this a suburban issue for those dealers who try to locate as close to Chicago as possible while not actually being within the city limits.

THERE MAY WELL be 10 counties in Illinois who voted earlier this week to have the state issue permits to allow people to carry firearms concealed on their persons. But they’re not from around here. They truly are in the rural parts of Illinois that try to live in seclusion from the “real” world.

PRECKWINKLE: Doing us a favor?

If our local firearms dealers want to relocate to a more politically-sympathetic place, I’d be all for it – even if it would result in the loss of the tax revenue that Preckwinkle and company seem determined to raise with their new fee.

Let them go. They’d be enhancing the quality of life in Chicago and Cook County with their absence!

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How cash-desperate is government?

Government entities can always use more money to fund their operations – enabling them to provide more services that would actually benefit the public.

If I were a corporation serious interested in buying naming rights from  Cook County, all I'd want is the little plot of land upon which the iconic Picasso statue rests. Photograph provided by State of Illinois.

And when certain government officials talk about wanting to reduce government spending, in many cases what they really want to do is cut programs to which they have ideological hang-ups. Budget balancing is not their primary concern.

BUT WE’RE IN a time period where economic struggles are impacting government as well. The existing tax rates just aren’t producing as much money as desired (what’s that old cliché, “you can’t draw blood from a turnip”) and some people need to rely on government services all the more in order to survive.

So perhaps it shouldn’t be shocking that government entities are considering some pretty strange-sounding ideas these days – justifying them with rhetoric about how desperately they need more money.

I can’t help but think that Cook County government talking about selling off naming rights and sponsorships is among them.

We may now be with a generation that thinks it is totally normal for sports arenas to have names like the United Center, U.S. Cellular Field or Toyota Park (just to name a few). But now, it seems, we’re going to at least contemplate the idea that the forest preserves or government buildings (at least parts of them) will have corporate names.

NO LONGER WILL such facilities be named for political hacks like Richard J. Daley or Dan Ryan (the woods, along with the expressway). That is, not unless their families are willing to let the government have what was left of their campaign war chests at the moments of their deaths.

It was just earlier this year that county officials put the name of George Leighton (one of the first African-American judges in Cook County) on the Criminal Courts building in the Little Village neighborhood.

But now, it seems that corporate entities could have their names put on the lobby, or other portions of the building.

Or if you have some real money to spend, you could get your name put on an entire forest preserve.

PERSONALLY, IF I had large amounts of money I could waste, I would want to buy a piece of Daley Plaza. I’m not greedy. I don’t want the whole plaza.

I just want the little square portion upon which sits the famed Picasso statue. Just think – the Picasso at Chicago Argus court, in Daley Plaza! It’s definitely a mouthful, and totally ridiculous-sounding.

Yet that’s the direction our county government is considering – all in the name of feeling desperate for cash to keep the county up-and-running.

Although it should be pointed out that it’s not just Cook County taking actions in the name of finance. It was just last week that the Illinois House of Representatives passed a measure meant to bolster the amount of money in state coffers.

NO, I’M NOT referring to the sequel of casino expansion (although that was done solely for the promise of hundreds of millions of dollars coming to the state). I’m talking about the proposed tax increase on packages of cigarettes.

If this measure actually gets past the Illinois Senate this week and Gov. Pat Quinn sometime this summer, the price of a pack would go up by $1.

I realize this increase is being justified to raise money desperately needed to maintain healthcare for low-income people. Anything that improves healthcare quality and access is a good thing.

It’s just that I wonder how far can political people go in terms of boosting tobacco-product taxes before they become too expensive to purchase. Not that it would bother me – I always thought of smoking as a tacky, smelly habit.

BUT AT WHAT point does this kind of increase become self-defeating by reducing the numbers of people who actually purchase cigarettes?

Or is nicotine truly so addictive that people will feel compelled to pay whatever price gets put on two-pack-a-day habit? I can’t help but think that we’d be encouraging people to cheat themselves out of something else in order to afford their tobacco fix – which just sounds like it creates so many problems.

Somehow, I suspect that the only people who will benefit from this change (if it becomes law) are the manufacturers of those generic brands of cigarettes – who will be able to offer a lower-base price.

That, and maybe those tacky little storefronts on the Indiana side of State Line Road – the ones that have their huge signs advertising “cheap smokes” along with firecrackers and all the generic flavors of pop you could want to guzzle down your throat while attending a picnic held at Little Caesar’s Pizza forest preserve!

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