IF TAXES CUT BEER, WINE SALES, FINE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 11, 1992                   TAG: 9202110376
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
IF TAXES CUT BEER, WINE SALES, FINE
PHILLIP A. Short (letter, Feb. 1) bemoans declining sales in the beer and wine industry of Virginia and points the finger at ever-increasing taxes. I'm sure he had a lot of drinkers crying in their beers.
He holds out the specter of 34,000 workers losing their jobs due to exorbitant taxes.
I would like to say that Mr. Short's industry destroys that many lives in Virginia every year. Untold suffering through deaths, accidents, abuse, divorce, job loss and broken dreams continues to tally up appalling statistics in Virginia alone.
If higher taxes cut into beer and wine sales, let's raise them higher and higher. This is one industry Virginia and, indeed, America can well live without, figuratively and literally. DAN ALBERT DUBLIN

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB