$3 soda = criminal

^ - you mean like how lotto money goes to education? My problem with vice taxes is that it is most often a tax on the people who can least afford it and have the least chance of avoiding it.

The least chance of avoiding it? Not sure I get what you're saying.

I found smoking to be, among other things, detrimental to my bank account. So, I avoiding buying them by quitting cold-turkey after 12 years of being a regular smoker.

If someone finds smoking/gambling/drinking to be a problem, they can avoid those things by not doing them. Its that simple.

Being poor doesn't mean you're more likely to be a gambler/smoker/alcoholic. Being an gambler/smoker/alcoholic means you're more likely to be poor.

^ - I guess what I meant is the people least likely to be able to get the help to quit. Remember a couple years ago when Michigan had that big quit smoking day and as part of it they were giving away quit smoking kits? And for a state of 10 million they had about 1000 made? That's the kind of BS that I'm talking about.

The state claims to want to help people quit but makes the most asinine moves towards it. My favorite is raising tobacco taxes to balanace the budget by selling it as a public health initiative (less people smoking is good, I don't disagree with that). But if less people smoke, that means your tax collects less money which means you again have an unbalanced budget.

Of course, the increase in taxes is one of the reasons I've been able to quit. Good motivation to quit so I'm not giving money to people who wouldn't know how to spend it anyway.

OK, I get that. I just don't have any sympathy for what I consider to be "poser quitters". If you want to quit - I mean really, truly want to - you will. It really is as simple as that. All the other half-assed measures are nothing more than attempts to make yourself feel better (look self, I'm "really" trying! see?), or to get others off your back (honey, I've tried to quit 15 times! what more do you want?!?). And if you need to quit because you can't afford it, and you still don't, I have even less sympathy for you.

I do agree that bureaucracy seems to pretty much negate any potential fiscal/social gains from such measures, which is sad.

^ - even better would be if the tax money were earmarked to all hospitals in the state (just take all tobacco tax dollars and divide by the number of hospitals) whether public or private with no strings attached. Basically, the state gets to collect the tax for the purposes of handing it back out.

That's the same way it should be with the lotto dollars but sadly isn't.

I agree that it's ridiculous, but most stadiums are a helluva lot worse. Busch Stadium, St Louis: $5 for a soda, $8.50 for a beer. THAT'S robbery.

I wish that was still true. Last game I have been to at Busch was last year and damn. 6 bucks for a Nathan's hotdog. 9.75 for a 24 ounce beer. Pretty damn crappy. I can get an 8 pack of the exact same Cardinal dogs and a 12 pack of budweiser at the grocery store for 12 bucks. At least the Cardinal organization puts a quality team out on the field year in and year out. Otherwise I don't know what I would do. Hopefully those Blues win a cup this year.

Tonight at the movies I spent $9 on a coke and Milk Duds. The Milk Duds costed $4 fricken dollars and the pop was $5. Robbery!

Cedar Point spent around $91,000,000 on grown up rides over the last ten years. That doesn't include the other improvements or kiddie areas they have paid for. How much money do you think a movie theater invests in the same ammount of time. If you want big boy rides, they have to be paid for or we will be lucky to see rides over $10 million anytime soon.

I love how people think that just because they spent $90 for a season pass that they are doing the park a favor by being there if they go more than 3 times and don't spend anymore money. I'm sure a lot of folks on here go many more times than that so what is the big deal if you sink a little more cash into a company that gives you a lot more entertainment for your dollar than you can find around this area?

CPboy thats why you go to the dollar store before and buy pop and snacks and then sneak them in. ;)

Just got back from the park. Last night and tonight outside the front gate they had a $10 fill a bag special with a bunch of different souveniers. There were dragster water bottles, mugs, glasses, lots of snoopy stuff, stuffed animals and a bunch more random things. Lots of people taking advantage of it. I wonder whats the reason for it.

I know tht I have been taking advantange on anything on sale! A few week back and a couple times this year Geauga Lake had a fill the bag for $15.00 to get ride of all the stuff from the park! I have gotten so much from that including shirts, jackets blankets, Snoopy stuff and so on!

CPboy - Robbery? Really?

Had you gone into the theater and they ripped $9.00 out of your wallet and jammed the Milk Duds and pop into your hands, you might be able to make that argument. But I don't think that is what really happend.

I'm guessing that you walked into the theater and had $9.00 in one hand and really wanted the "stuff" in the other hand. Then you had a choice to make. Did the $9.00 have more value to you than the "stuff". Obviously to you, the "stuff" had more value and you chose to buy it.

They can charge $9.00 for the "stuff" because enough people, like yourself, will continue to buy it regardless of what they paid for it.

"Cedar Point spent around $91,000,000 on grown up rides over the last ten years. That doesn't include the other improvements or kiddie areas they have paid for. How much money do you think a movie theater invests in the same ammount of time. If you want big boy rides, they have to be paid for or we will be lucky to see rides over $10 million anytime soon."

Disney has spent 10 times that amount over the past 10 years, and they still do not charge that much for a soda.....

http://allears.net/menu/men_cr.htm

Having not read this thread, I'm just going to throw in my 2 cents, so feel free to flame me away. There's water in the park, and it's free.

If you can't stand water, drink nothing but it a couple years, and you'll never want soda again. Cedar Point would be criminal for charging $3 for tap water and giving no free options.

While I don't agree with their pricing structure on food / beverages, I do not feel CP is an unethical business because of it. And when I buy a $5 pretzel or something, I think of it as donating money to a place I want to be in business all my life and beyond.

$3 for a soda!?

When did they start putting cocaine in Coca-Cola again?

Pricing decisions are not that complicated. You can start out with drinks at $0.25 and look at what your profits will be at that price. If you increase the price to $0.50, you presumably will lose some people who were buying at a quarter who think its now too expensive. But presumably, you will not find too many people who stop buying at that price and your profits at $0.50 will be higher than they would be at a quarter. You continue to look at higher prices, losing some folks with each price increase who bought at the previously lower price, and see what your profits are. At some point, you reach a price point above which your profits will decrease.

Different businesses will have different maximizing profits price points. It will tend to be higher for things like drinks in captive situations in which the customer doesn't have many options. Where there are plenty of other options, the price point will tend to be lower.

I don't put too much of a connection between the price of drinks and large rides. But I think going foward, a very siginficant issue for CF is the population trends in their core regions.

crazy horse said:
Disney has spent 10 times that amount over the past 10 years, and they still do not charge that much for a soda.....

http://allears.net/menu/men_cr.htm

They have other ways of making money though. They don't have to count on food profit.

"They have other ways of making money though. They don't have to count on food profit."

The same can be said for cedar point.

GoBucks89 said:
Pricing decisions are not that complicated. You can start out with drinks at $0.25 and look at what your profits will be at that price... At some point, you reach a price point above which your profits will decrease.

And I'm sure CP did just that kind of basic economic analysis, that is why the price of soda is where it is at.

But I think going foward, a very siginficant issue for CF is the population trends in their core regions.

Agreed in the short term, in the long term I think the region will come back. It will reinvent itself so to speak.

The auto industry will make somewhat of a comeback, but certainly not what it was. Other industries will fill the gap. You can already see that happening in Cleveland, with medical and biomedical research being huge, with other high tech industries like alternative energy, bio-tech and software getting a nice foothold.

High tech employment actually rose almost 4% in Cleveland in the last 4 years, with the avg. salary of about $70,000. Those are exactly the kind of people CP wants to attract.

Plus, we have one very important ace - The Great Lakes. When the west dries up we will be the oasis. I think that could very well have a large impact on employment and population trends reversing themselves in the next 30 or 40 yrs.

I agree with you Pete. Companies that can relocate so that they can pay less to a hungry workforce will find Detroit attractive.

The Great Lakes thing might work for you guys now, and even work for you for many years. However, each year the Great Lakes lose depth. This depth loss is not due to a lack of water, but an increase of pressure from the earth's crust pushing those lake basins back to normal. Before the glaciers the earth was pretty flat up their, but the heavy weight of the glaciers made indentions in the earth. This caused basins to exist when the glaciers melted. Now the earth is fighting back and the lakes are losing their depth. So fifty billion generations from now might not see the great lakes.

After stating this you might figure out how much I believe in this crap. Everything you hear about "Evolution" happened billions of years ago. I know that the lakes are losing some depth, but that could just as easily be caused by Plate Techtonic Pressures. So, enjoy those lakes like many others have (I love them too) and quit buying into evolution.

I know this is random, and I also know that natural selection is real, but think about how long a person has lived and how much their data can be trusted.

Big Bang Theory is Crap.

Carbon Dating is Crap.

I know I will catch hell for this(at least I think I will) but for any of you Big Bang Theory peeps I can explain that it is total BULL.

Sorry to get off topic