Retail Watchers

City of Portland passed a 1% tax of some sort onto businesses for certain items. As of 9/9/19, Albertsons is passing the cost onto customers purchasing eligible items.

These are beer, wine, tobacco, "prepared food intended for immediate consumption" and a few I missed I think.

I have not seen this notice in the downtown Safeway, but it is on entry doors at neighborhood Albertsons.

Wasn't WinCo doing something like this on some kind of local tax too?

I do not think it is unreasonable for the business to pass this tax through to the customer. This alerts the customer as to what its elected officials are doing and if enough of the customers do not like the tax or what is it going to fund, they need to hold their elected officials accountable. Lousy for individuals who come from an outside area to shop, but I suppose nobody is forcing them to shop there. My local area has a sales tax of 8.2something% and a couple surrounding areas tax at 7.1%; I make a point to make taxable purchases outside my local area when I think about it not because I care so much about the tax rate itself and the pennies I will save on a pack of paper towels, but because I disagreed with the last reason why they increased the local sales tax, but for convenience purposes, still make the majority of my taxable purchases in my home area. Local area also has a 40 cent per gallon gas tax (goes to help build more roads) that does not exist in surrounding areas 25 minutes away; again I make a point to buy gas outside this area but that is impractical sometimes. It reminds me of all of the taxes attached to rental cars in many major airports... you have no say in it. If you want the car, you pay the taxes. The taxes are absolutely passed through to you, and you had no say in the matter when the city or airport authority opted to impose the tax.