City seeks sin tax approval

Robert Taylor

Students may pay up to an extra 5 cents for every serving of alcohol they get in Kent if a new sin tax is implemented.

“Our law director wrote our state representative this week to see if they could remodify the law to focus on cities,” city manager Dave Ruller said. “Right now we are fishing to see what we can get.”

Ohio has previously only allowed sin taxes to be implemented in counties within the state. If approved, Kent would be the first municipality to do so.

But if the sin tax is approved in Kent, the revenue will be used for Kent’s public safety department.

Bar owners and businesses that sell alcohol in Kent are not happy, with more than one calling the tax unneeded and blaming the move on what they consider Kent’s fiscal irresponsibility.

Ruller stresses that it will be good for Kent in the long run.

“With a college city such as Kent, there can be a major impact on public safety,” Ruller said. “The logic was that, with the student base, it would make sense to create a revenue base out of that, and four cents would not be an extra burden on the students.”

Check back with StaterOnline.com and tomorrow’s edition of the Stater for more on this story.

Contact public affairs reporter Robert Taylor at [email protected].