Buena Vista City Council is to hold a public hearing and a first reading on a proposed ordinance, likely on Sept. 4, to establish a 25-cents-per-pack cigarette tax that would take effect Jan. 1.
Although no vote was taken, a consensus emerged following discussion on the subject last Thursday, Aug. 7, to direct staff to prepare a proposed ordinance. During the discussion, three Council members expressed support for the tax, one voiced opposition and two indicated they have misgivings about the proposal.
The FY 2026 budget Council adopted back in the spring included an estimated $50,000 in revenue that would be generated if a 25-cents-per-pack cigarette tax was in effect for the second half of the fiscal year. Preceding Council’s adoption of the budget in May, the budget and finance committee recommended approval of the cigarette tax to take effect Jan. 1.
Stanley Coffey, one of two Council members to vote against the budget in May, said he didn’t think it was “proper” to add a tax several months after the budget was adopted. He said he didn’t recall Council discussing the cigarette tax during budget deliberations. “My point is … we never discussed beforehand … it bothers me … [that] you picked out a section of people, a sector of people, that you’re gonna tax.”
Steve Webb, chair of the budget and finance committee, recalled how committee members “worked for months to try to figure out how to balance the budget.” They came upon the idea of establishing a cigarette tax at the same rate as Lexington and Rockbridge County – 25 cents per pack – that would generate an estimated $100,000 over an entire year.
“How much sales tax are we going to lose by people that come into town because [of no cigarette] tax and buy gas and buy everything else and all that stuff here?” asked Melvin Henson.
Michelle Poluikis, who also serves on the budget and finance committee, defended the committee’s recommendation. She said she sees people passing through the city on U.S. 501 stopping at Buena Vista stores buying gas, something to eat and cigarettes. “So, in my opinion, in looking at this, this is a way of maybe alleviating a little bit of that burden on the residents of BV … ” Coffey contended that folks are coming to Buena Vista from Lexington and the county to avoid having to pay the cigarette tax. “When they come to these stores, they’re not just coming to buy cigarettes. They go get gas, they go buy beer, they go get snacks … you’re going to lose that.”
Poluikis said she doubts that many people make a special trip into Buena Vista just to avoid the cigarette tax, when they’d end up paying more for gas just to get here. “I don’t think people are going to be losing business.”
Ron Cash noted that the “cost of tobacco is billions of dollars in health care that is spread across all of us who go to doctors and go to hospitals, who receive respiratory care …” He said he supports the notion of imposing what he called a “sin tax … I guess the thinking is if people choose to do things that they hurt themselves, but the cost of that damage to them is spread across society, then there needs to be some way to level the cost. It is leveled across society. There needs to be a way to pull some of that cost, some of that expense back to the folks who are creating the problem, so to speak.”
Henson asked if vapes could be taxed. City Attorney Brian Kearney responded that Virginia has not yet given localities the authority to tax vaping products. However, he pointed out that state laws are undergoing changes with regard to these products. New laws on the books limit the sales of vaping products to those 21 years or older, with Alcohol Beverage Control enforcement.
Danny Staton, who joined Coffey in opposing the budget in May, said he’s “kind of on the fence on this thing [the cigarette tax], but I think we should have had this conversation month ago, not after the budget was passed. … Well, now we’re against the wall. … Now we’re talking about the possibility of raising taxes a couple months later. Again, it’s just hard for me to grasp that idea that we will possibly consider doing that.”
Mayor Tyson Cooper said he did remember that the proposal for the cigarette tax was brought to Council from the budget and finance committee as early as the end of March. “If anything, this is on us. If we didn’t know it was in there, it’s because we weren’t paying attention. We weren’t listening to what Steve and Michelle were sharing with us, and we weren’t looking at the budget. So can we do better? Absolutely. I commit to doing better and trying harder to make sure that we’re all aligned and on the same page.”
That being said, Cooper asked if Council was ready to move forward with having staff draft a proposed ordinance to establish a 25-cents-per-pack cigarette tax. That way, he explained, a public hearing could be held to get citizens’ input on the proposal before Council actually votes on the tax.
The consensus of Council was to have staff prepare the draft.
