Cigarette Tax Increase on the Horizon

Indianapolis, IN (November 26, 2020) - Legislative leaders are open to the idea of hiking Indiana's cigarette tax in an effort to reduce the state's 21.8% adult smoking rate, one of the highest in the nation.

But the top Republicans and Democrats in both the Indiana House and Senate recently said any proposal to raise the current $1 per pack cigarette tax must be accompanied by a specific plan for how the additional money will go toward improving public health.

"The pandemic has taught us that poor quality of health, unfortunately, has dire consequences, and we need to figure out ways to improve Hoosier health," said House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers.

At the same time, Huston said his experience as the former chairman of the budget-writing House Ways and Means Committee taught him that while increasing the cigarette tax is likely to decrease smoking rates, it also will make some state revenue less reliable.

"The whole genesis of increasing the cigarette tax is it's the one thing, more than cessation programs and other things, that's been shown to reduce smoking," Huston said. "So literally the day you implement a new tax rate is the most amount of money you're going to collect if the policy is successful." 

"So you have a declining revenue source and you just have to be thoughtful and manage that appropriately."

House Democratic Leader Phil GiaQuinta, D-Fort Wayne, said that makes it challenging to do innovative things with the money raised by a higher cigarette tax because the revenue will decline in subsequent years. But it's probably still worth doing, he said.

"I just don't want it to go back into the General Fund or something like that. I'd like to really see some concrete programs that we're going to use the money for to improve the health of Hoosiers," GiaQuinta said. "There's a lot of needs out there."

The Indiana Chamber of Commerce has recommended boosting the cigarette tax by $2 per pack for a total state tax of $3 per pack. 

That would be two cents higher than Illinois' $2.98 per pack cigarette tax. Cigarettes sold in Northwest Indiana still would be a comparative bargain because Cook County ($3) and Chicago ($1.18) each add a local cigarette tax to every pack sold in their jurisdiction.

Indiana Senate President Rod Bray, R-Martinsville, said if the Republican-controlled House endorses a cigarette tax hike — since all tax legislation is constitutionally required to begin in the House — the Republican-controlled Senate would be happy to consider it.

Meanwhile, Senate Democratic Leader Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis, said if lawmakers want to tax smoking to raise revenue, the best course would be to legalize and tax recreational marijuana as most of Indiana's neighboring states, including Illinois, already have done.

"We're going to be on an island out here by ourselves," Taylor said. "The implementation of medical or recreational marijuana in Indiana would raise more money than any cigarette tax that we could ever think about."

Taylor said a tax on legal marijuana would raise money for a variety of state and local needs and save money if Indiana no longer is locking up people nabbed by police with small amounts of marijuana, including substances legally purchased in a neighboring state.

However, even if marijuana legalization somehow were to win General Assembly approval, Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb has said he opposes legalization as long as marijuana is classified as a prohibited controlled substance by the federal government.

The Legislature is due to convene its four-month annual session January. 4 at the Statehouse in Indianapolis.

White Castle Stuffing Recipe

Beech Grove, IN (November 21, 2020) - If you're still in search of one final dish that will really take your meal to the next level, consider White Castle's burger-stuffed turkey recipe.

To celebrate the biggest food holiday of the year, the chain famous for it's little burgers recently re-released its stuffing recipe and it's a pretty fun take on the traditional dish. 

The White Castle's original burger stuffing recipe actually dates all the way back to 1991 when, as the story goes, a White Castle team member used a sack of burgers to beef up her grandmother’s stuffing recipe.

“As a family-owned business, we’re happy to have the Original Slider and the Turkey Stuffing recipe a Thanksgiving staple for so many families across the country" Jamie Richardson, vice president of White Castle, said in a statement.

If you like burgers, this recipe might just be a big home run since you can use it to stuff your bird or bake it off in a casserole dish.

Ingredients:

• 10-12 White Castle Sliders without pickles 
• 1 ½ cups diced celery 
• 1 ¼ teaspoons ground thyme 
• 1 ½ teaspoons ground sage 
• ¾ teaspoons coarse ground black pepper 
• ¼ cup chicken broth or 1 cup for casserole version

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, tear the sliders into pieces and add the celery, thyme, sage, and black pepper.
2.  Add ¼ cup chicken broth and toss well. Stuff the ingredients into the cavity of the turkey before roasting and then simply cook the turkey for several hours, based on the size of your bird. 
3. Or, place into casserole dish; add an additional ¾ cup of chicken broth, toss, and bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes. The recipe makes about 9 cups of stuffing (enough for a 10-12 pound turkey). 
4. Note: Allow one slider for each pound of turkey, which will be the equivalent of ¾ cup of stuffing per pound.

While the recipe is pretty out there, it’s not that weird. Those soft, doughy slider buns are a great stand in for any type of bread and a lot of people add sausage or bacon to their stuffing ... so why not beef?

Since some variation of the recipe has been around for over 25 years now, plenty on social media have shared their (mixed) results and reactions.

SOURCE: White Castle

Ring recalls 350,000 smart doorbells over fire concerns

Indianapolis, IN (November 11, 2020) - Ring issued a recall Tuesday for hundreds of thousands of its smart doorbells after receiving several reports of the devices catching fire.

The recall affects around 350,000 second-generation Ring doorbells sold in the US and roughly 8,700 more sold in Canada, according to a notice posted by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. The video doorbells were sold on Ring's website and on Amazon between June and October, according to the notice.

"The video doorbell's battery can overheat when the incorrect screws are used for installation, posing fire and burn hazards," the notice said.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission said Ring has received 23 reports of its doorbells catching fire and causing minor property damage. The company has also received eight reports of minor burns as a result fires associated with its doorbell.

"The safety of our customers is our top priority," a Ring spokesperson said. "We have and continue to work cooperatively with the CPSC on this issue and have contacted customers who purchased a Ring Video Doorbell (2nd Gen) to ensure they received the updated user manual and follow the device installation instructions.

"Customers do not need to return their devices," the spokesperson said.

Consumer can check whether their Ring doorbells are subject to the recall by entering the serial number printed on the back of the device at on the company's support website.

SOURCE: Ring

Google Limits Free Photo Storage

Oakland, California (November 11, 2020) – Alphabet Inc’s Google will start limiting how many high-quality photos users can store on the company’s cloud back-up service starting next June, it announced on Wednesday, in a move that could help protect profit margins. 

“Growing demand for storage” means Google Photos can no longer honor a years-old policy of unlimited capacity for high-quality images, the company said in a blog post. Storage of images, along with files in Google’s document editing services, will instead be capped at a combined total of 15 gigabytes.

“Original quality” images, or incredibly high-resolution copies, were the only ones to previously count against the limit. Google’s plans for additional storage, dubbed Google One, start a $2 a month.

More than 1 billion people use Google Photos each month, but the company estimated fewer than 20% of them will need to upgrade for extra storage in the next three years.

Google has faced eroding profits in recent years as it invests heavily in cloud storage systems without experiencing a related increase in revenue. But the company this year has been aiming to close the gap by adjusting perks of its Google One offering to draw more sales.

SOURCE: Reuters 

Steak ‘n Shake closes another 13 locations

Indianapolis, IN (November 9, 2020) - Steak ‘n Shake and its franchisees appear to have closed another 13 locations as the brand continued its pullback during a pandemic that has sapped it of much of its customer traffic. The Indianapolis-based chain, part of the Biglari Holdings conglomerate, has been shuttering locations at a steady pace as years of sales declined have deteriorated its finances.

The company appears to have closed another 11 locations in the third quarter, while franchisees closed another two, based on Biglari Holdings securities filings. Steak ‘n Shake currently operates 528 locations, including 260 company units, 69 operated by “franchise partners,” and 199 by traditional franchisees.

Some 37 of those 260 company-operated locations remain “temporarily closed,” according to the filings. 

Steak ‘n Shake has been permanently closing locations all year due to the pandemic. It started 2020 with 610 units, suggesting 82 restaurants have shut down so far this year, or 13% of the chain. The closures have come as traffic has taken a nosedive during the pandemic. According to the filing, same-store traffic plunged 54.2% in the third quarter ended Sept. 30. Traffic has fallen 44.6% so far this year.

Same-store sales numbers were not published, but the company has seen steady decreases in recent years that have presumably worsened in recent months during quarantine-related dine-in restrictions.

To combat that, Steak ‘n Shake has been shifting its traditionally full-service business into a counter-service model—a rare shift, yet indicative of the challenges facing traditional dine-in concepts at a time when consumers are taking their food with them.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected our restaurant operations and financial results,” Biglari Holdings said in a filing. The company has been adding equipment in reopened restaurants to shift the restaurants’ model to one that emphasizes counter service and does away with wait staff. Yet details in the earnings report suggest the effort has been "limited."



But, the company noted, “the funds needed for the transition are limited under its current debt agreement.” Steak ‘n Shake has $153 million in debt that Biglari Holdings doesn’t guarantee—and refuses to guarantee.

That has put the chain under some pressure to turn itself around before next March, when the debt comes due. “Absent a resolution with the lenders, Steak ‘n Shake may need to seek refinancing options, which may not be available,” the company said. The pandemic could also limit those financing options.

Steak ‘n Shake has been shifting many of its restaurants to operators who would take ownership in exchange for a fee of “up to 15%” of sales and a split of the remaining profits. The company now has 69 such restaurants run by those franchise partners.

But traditional royalties have plummeted during the pandemic: Franchise royalties and fees fell 33% in the third quarter and are down 31.5% for the first nine months of the year.

SOURCE: Restaurant Business Online