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Monday, October 2, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Margin could be financed with cigarette tax money
The price of a pack of cigarettes could be going up, and the University of Kansas stands to take a cut off the top. If people are going to smoke, deriving some benefit from it makes sense.
State Sen. Dick Bond, R-Overland Park, has proposed a 5 percent increase in the tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products to finance the third year of the Margin of Excellence, the Board of Regents three-year plan to bring the total financing of its seven institutions to 95 percent of their peer schools and to bring faculty salaries to 100 percent of their peers.
Bond estimates that the increase, which would bring the tax on a pack of cigarettes to 29 cents, would raise about $16.7 million during the next 18 months.
This plan should receive wholehearted support and approval in the Legislature. Financing for the final year of the Margin will be difficult if legislators try to raise sales, income or property taxes. Voters take a skeptical look at these increases. This is political reality.
On the other hand, a tax increase on tobacco usually receives only token opposition. Furthermore, those who smoke generally do not stop buying cigarettes when the price goes up, ensuring a reliable source of additional revenue. This is also political reality.
Chancellor Gene A. Budig has said it is not the role of the University to determine taxation. This may be true, but KU should be cognizant that its future depends on the Margin's final year of financing. Anything that concerns the Margin should concern the University.
The bottom line is that the third year of the Margin is necessary for KU to remain competitive with other universities as it strives for even higher achievement. The Margin means money, and that means taxes. A cigarette tax would supply the revenue with the least amount of political turmoil. It is the best option.
Daniel Niemi for the editorial board
Police violate Constitution by checking identification
Law-enforcement privileges, which include checking the identification of bar patrons, were justifiably limited Sept. 20 in Douglas County District Court.
In Kansas vs. Abby Bernstein, Judge Jean Shepherd ruled to suppress evidence on the grounds that Lawrence police officers did not have reasonable suspicion that Bernstein was underage or involved in any criminal activity. The District judge also wrote that a law enforcement official is dependent on his own perspective when assessing bar patrons' ages.
All Lawrence bars and other establishments that serve alcohol should be required to check personal identification before allowing admittance to the establishment. It is incomprehensible however, that police officers, based on their own perspective, should be able to freely scrutinize a crowd and require identification of a specific bar patron.
State Sen. Wint Winter, R-Lawrence, has written that police must be able to "effectively enforce" the 21-year-old drinking age. That includes the freedom to ask for bar patrons' identification.
The Supreme Court has ruled in past cases that this practice is unconstitutional. In Brown vs. Texas, the Court said that a state law forcing an individual to identify himself to a law-enforcement official violated the Fourth Amendment.
Thom Clark for the editorial board
Although Lawrence establishments should bear the unpleasant responsibility of requiring adequate identification of their patrons, this is preferable to police officers enforcing a policy which has been deemed as violating the Fourth Amendment by the Supreme Court. It is important that underage drinkers be held accountable for their actions, but a process that requires law enforcement officials to speculate on age is as discriminatory as it is unconstitutional.
Members of the editorial board are David Stewart, Stan Diel, Brett Brenner, Ric Brack, Daniel Niemi, Craig Welch, Kathy Walsh, Deb Gruver, Thom Clark and Tiffany Harness.
News staff
David Stewart ... Editor
Ric Brock ... Managing editor
Daniel Niemi ... News editor
Candy Niemann ... Planning editor
Stella Edith ... Editorial editor
Jennifer Corseu ... Campus editor
Elaine Sung ... Sports editor
Luan Wuchun ... Photo editor
Christine Winner ... Art/Feature editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news advert
Business staff
Linda Prokop...Business manager
Debra Martin...Local advertising sales director
Jerre Medford...National/regional sales director
Jill Lowe...Marketing director
Tamil Rank...Production manager
Carrie Stankin...Assistant production manager
Margaret Townsend...Co-op manager
Eddy Hughes...Office director
Christi Doole...Classified manager
Jeff Meesey...Teaches manager
Jeanne Hines...Sales and marketing adviser
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Students should learn about CFCs
We were disappointed to learn that the University of Kansas recently banned polystyrene foam products from its food service operations for environmental reasons. KU students should know the following.
Virtually all of the food service industry quit using ozone-depleting Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) at the end of 1988 on a voluntary basis and with the blessing of several environmental groups. CFCs had been used by a small part of the food service industry as a blowing agent to give polystyrene its foam-like quality. Even at its peak employment level, CFCs were accounted for just 2 to 3 percent of all CFC use. Seventy to 80 percent of the industry never used CFCs.
It's true that polystyrene foam isn't "biodegradable." What's worth noting here is that nothing readily degrades in today's sanitary landfills because they are, to a large extent, oxygen- and moisture-free. Decades-old food, newspaper and yard waste have been excavated from landfills in a near virgin state. Degradation, then, offers little benefit when it comes to extending landfill capacities and reducing the number of sites where the residual creates leachate that threatens our groundwater and methane gas. These are new environmental problems that society will have to contend with for years to come.
We should maintain some perspective, too. All plastics account for about 7 percent by weight and between 9 and 12 percent of all municipal solid waste by volume. All polystyrene foam, meanwhile, represents just 0.25 percent of solid waste by weight and volume. Also note that because industry continues to develop thinner, more efficient
Tom L.
Kornegav Jr.
Guest columnist
products, plastics in the waste stream have remained at a flat level for 20 years.
Additionally, plastics require less energy and water to produce than the pulp and paper alternatives. Consider, too, the number of trees that must be harvested annually to meet this nation's demand for paper products. Moreover, plastics generally cost less and perform better from insulation and sanitation standpoints. Plastics made from natural resources are used to be flared or vented into the atmosphere, so claims of natural resources depletion are less than accurate.
Of greatest significance, however, is plastics' recyclability. We readily acknowledge that plastics recycling is a, relatively new enterprise. Nonetheless, we are confident that post-consumer plastics recycling will become commonplace in the 1990s. The National Polystyrene Recycling Company, for example, has established an aggressive 25 percent domestic recycling goal by 1995. That company, funded by seven resin manufacturers, will build at least five regional recycling facilities in the United States in the next several years with an initial budget of $13 million.
Two such facilities already exist. Mobil and Genpak operate one near Boston. Amoco has another in New York. It's here that we provide food-contaminated foam with a second life. The reclaim can be used in the production of plastic
profiles (plastic lumber), video cassettes, office products, toys and foundation protection board. The applications are almost unlimited
We must also point out that pulp and paper food service products, once contaminated with food, are not recyclable. Once used, they'll end up in our landfills. And most are coated with wax or plastic.
Polystyrene foam is also environmentally sound from a waste-to-energy incineration standpoint. When burned at the proper temperature, foam results in carbon dioxide, water and trace ash. And because it is a clean-burning petroleum derivative, foam actually enhances the incineration process.
Polystyrene foam accounts for only 2 percent of all roadside litter. Nevertheless, we'd like to see litter eliminated in full. The best way to address it, we see it, is to modify behavior through education.
If we really hope to develop comprehensive solutions to our environmental problems, public and private sectors must work together. While the plastics industry readily admits that it is a art of the problem, we also have the resources and desire to be a part of the solution.
KU's Memorial Corporation Board, by pointing a discriminatory finger at just one miniscule part of the problem, has offered little environmental benefit. It may, in fact, have complicated matters.
We encourage the University of Kansas and its students to become involved in addressing environmental issues, especially the solid waste and litter. Remember, though, to be objective.
Tom L. Kornegay Jr. is Western Region Director of the issues Management Department of Amoco Foam Products Company.
'Perfect' restaurant should be fun
Finally, I have found the perfect restaurant. Now if it only served good food.
During the '80s, restaurants gradually emerged as the dominant places where adults spent their leisure time. Restaurants are reviewed by critics, and restaurant openings create the same kind of excitement. Because they become hot, it will make millions of dollars, and people will stand in line to get in.
I've never been attracted to all of this, mainly because at a restaurant you have to sit and wait for your food, plus you have to talk to the other people at your table. No matter how fashionable a new restaurant is, no matter how much its owners have spent on design, those two things hold true. You have to sit there and wait for your food, which is boring, and you have to talk to the people who are sitting there. You can easily unable to do. The other people at the table say something to me, and I eithergrant or twitch. Sometimes I will pretend to drop something and disappear under the table.
The other week, though, I was traveling, and I wanted to have a pizza, so I stopped at what appeared to be a pizzeria. The sign said that it was called the ShowBiz Pizza Place.
What a revelation! I walked inside and placed my order, and the order taker gave me a big plastic number. "Put it on any table where you live," she said. "We'll bring your food when it's ready."
So I did. I immediately noticed that all around the room were games. Miniature bowling games, basketball games, Skee-Ball games and games
Bob Greene
Syndicated columnist
where you threw objects at the wall. And there were machines that dispensed 25-cent tokens. For a token, you could play any of the games.
I went to explore. On stage was a "band" composed of big mechanical animal characters, the "leader" of which, I later found out, was a bear named Billy Bob. The mechanical band played a variety of tunes.
Why had I not heard of a place like this? You place your order, and instead of looking at your watch and wondering where your food is, you throw a ball at something or test your strength on a machine. When your food does arrive, if someone tries to talk to you, you can get up between bites and throw some more balls, or you can go into the next room and watch Billy Bob and the other mechanical animals in the band do their songs. You won't appear rude; it's what you're supposed to do. Take a bite, get up, throw a ball. Go back to the table, take a bite, go watch Billy Bob.
The drawback, as mentioned at the beginning of this story, is that the food is not really designed for grownups. In addition to pizza, you can get cotton candy and ice cream and stuff like that. This is no coincidence; ShowBiz Pizza Places are designed
for the diner with the attention span of a 4-year-old. Namely, children.
Apparently they are big hits all over the suburban United States. Richard Frank, chairman of ShowBiz Pizza Time Inc., said his company had 285 restaurants, some of which were called ShowBiz Place and some of which were called Chuck E. Cheese's. The idea is to entertain children.
But I think the company may be onto something without even realizing it. There are plenty of us who have the attention spans of 4-year-olds without having to worry. Why not expand the concern to adult restaurants?
You order your salmon or your barbecued ribs, then you get up and throw a ball at the wall. You go back to the table. The person next to you asks what you think of national politics, and you go around the corner and watch the mechanical animals sing. Your food comes, you take a bite, you excuse yourself to play Skee-Ball for a few minutes.
It would work. I know it would work. The Rolling Stones are on tour, but there I was, sitting happily in the dark watching that bear Billy Bob and the other creatures on the stage. No high ticket prices, no scalpers, no long lines. The only reason I went back to my table is that I sensed the food was getting cold. It would work. Broiled snapper, green beans, a baked potato, a bowling ball and Billy Bob. It would work.
> Bobs Greene is a columnist with the Chicago Tribune.
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