I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Health care reform has tanning salon owners seeing red in New Mexico, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported Monday.
The reform law’s new 10 percent federal tax on tanning services kicks in July 1. The number of tanning salons in many U.S. cities exceeds the number of Starbucks and McDonald’s, according to a March 2009 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
But the new tax will discourage people from tanning and could shutter salons, worries Lisa Rowen, owner of Hot Pepper Tanning Co. in Las Cruces.
“A lot of my clients feel they’re getting an unfair shake,” Rowen told Sun-News reporter Diana Alba.
Other owners say they oppose the tax on principle.
“On a $6 session, it’s 60 cents, so it’s not that it’s so significant we couldn’t hike the prices a little bit,” Gecko Tans owner Monica Creason said. “But it’s a ridiculous tax.”
Use of tanning beds increases the risk of melanoma, an often-deadly skin cancer.
Similar sin taxes have been levied on tobacco products, proponents point out.
“From what we know, the tax proposed on UV tanning is an example of a behavior that is considered to have a high cost on society,” Sen. Jeff Bingaman spokeswoman Jude McCartin told the Sun-News. “Studies have shown that taxing is an effective way to discourage the behavior.”
A study published in the March issue of the journal Health Communication found that articles about tanning in magazines targeting girls and young women, like Cosmo Girl and Glamour, downplay the risks of tanning and, ironically, emphasize “looking healthy” as one of its benefits.
