CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SACRAMENTO : Cigarette Sales Fall; Tax Comes Up Short

Cigarette sales in California declined 14% during 1989, and revenues from the quarter-a-pack cigarette tax fell short of projections by more than $75 million, the State Board of Equalization reported. Cigarette sales totaled 2.18 billion packs in 1989, down from more than 2.53 billion the year before. The figures reflect a dramatic--and continuing--drop in cigarette consumption. Cigarette taxes totaled about $764.4 million, $75.6 million shy of the $840 million that state fiscal experts had projected would be generated by the cigarette tax. Proposition 99, the tobacco-tax initiative approved by voters in November, 1988, increased the tax on cigarettes from 10 cents to 35 cents a pack and also increased levies on other tobacco products including pipe tobacco, cigars, snuff and chewing tobacco.