Petition seeks big increase in liquor, beer taxes

The "nickel-a-drink" plan would funnel the higher tax revenues to drug and alcohol prevention, treatment and rehabilitation programs.

Vil Paskevicius, program director at the treatment center of the Economic Opportunity Board in Clark County, said the casino industry blocked the plan in the 1997 Legislature and now a group of treatment centers is trying another attack.

The 1997 bill got out of the Assembly Judiciary Committee but died in the Assembly Taxation Committee.

Backers of the petition must gather 46,764 signatures of registered voters, including 10 percent of the voters in 13 of Nevada's 17 counties. If they succeed, the proposal would be presented to the 1999 Legislature.

If the Legislature rejected or modified the plan, the issue would be on the 2000 election ballot.

Harvey Whittemore, lobbyist for gambling and liquor industries, predicts voters and lawmakers will reject the proposal.

"If these programs need to be funded and we support them, then the general fund should be used," Whittemore said, adding the general taxpayer should support these programs, not one segment of the economy.

The petition proposes boosting the tax on beer from nine cents to 62 cents per gallon - a 589 percent increase. Taxes on liquor, wine and cordials would jump anywhere from 208 to 284 percent.

Paskevicius argues the number of drug and alcohol abuse cases are skyrocketing and more beds are needed. The EOB facility has 36 beds with the stay for one person averaging 68 days.

"We have a 90-day waiting list and the only reason it's not longer is because people get tired and don't want to wait any longer," he said.

"Most of our people come out of the criminal justice system," Paskevicius said. "At least while they are in here, they are not ripping you and I off. They are productive for this period of time."

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