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Show Utahns Spending $56.4 Million on Cigarets, Alcohol Tobacco, beer, liquor sales in Utah during the 1961 calendar year amounted to $56.4 million or $61.66 per capita. This fact was brought out in an analysis prepared by Utah Foundation, the private tax research organization. organ-ization. According to the Foundation study, tobacco product sales in Utah last year are estimated at $20,027,203, or $21.88 per capita; beer sales amounted to $17,773,-049, $17,773,-049, or $19.42 per capita, and liquor sales totaled $18,633,365 or $20.36 per capita. These figures fig-ures are all taken from estimates prepared by the Utah State Tax Commission. The report notes that last year 64,359.935 packs of cigarettes, 7,899,133 gallons of beer, 410,307 gallons of wine, and 729,224 gallons gal-lons of distilled spirits were sold in Utah. Foundation analysts point out that the apparent consumption of tobacco products and alcoholic beverages in Utah is well below national averages. In fiscal 1961, for example, Utah had the lowest per capita sales of cigarettes in the nation. Tax-paid cigarette sales in Utah amounted to 71.2 packs per capita, compared with a national average of 133.6 packs per capita. Similarly, the study shows that per capita consumption of distilled spirits for 1959 was 0.76 gallons per person in Utah compared com-pared with a national average of 1.31 gallons per capita. Only six states (including Mississippi and Oklahoma which were dry at the time) ranked below Utah in the apparent consumption of distilled spirits. The Foundation also points out that five of the six states ranking below Utah were Southern States which generally gen-erally have a significant traffic in illegal (and thus not reported) liquor sales. |