Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen accepts $2,500 from R.J. Reynolds, producer of harmful tobacco products

Campaign financial disclosures filed with the Elk Grove City Clerk's office show Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen accepted a large cash donation from a company in the detested tobacco industry.

A September 5 filing of California 497 Contribution shows Mayor Singh-Allen accepted $2,500 from R.J Reynolds Tobacco Company and Its Affiliates, 401 N. Main St., Winston Salem, NC. 

The California Attorney General's office shows a long list of products produced by R. Reynolds. Among their notorious tobacco products are Camel cigarettes and its Joe Camel cartoon mascot, which was designed to lure children into the habit of cigarette smoking.

The Stanford University Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising describes the Joe Camel print advertising campaign as follows:   

In a transparent effort to greatly increase their market share of young smokers, R.J. Reynolds initiated the now infamous Old Joe Camel campaign for the Camel brand in 1988. The campaign, which ran continuously for 9 years until 1997, featured a cool dromedary cartoon character and faced almost immediate criticism from the public for influencing children to smoke.

From the campaign’s inception, young people were primary targets. The first Joe Camel ad in the United States was released to celebrate Camel’s 75th “birthday” and was based on a French advertisement for Camel filters from 1974 (1). The original French Joe Camel was reported to be a “smash” because “it’s about as young as you can get, and aims right at the young adult smoker Camel needs to attract” (2). (The term “young adult smoker” is industry jargon for the youngest spectrum of customers legally targeted through cigarette ads.)

For her day job, Singh-Allen is a representative for the American Petroleum and Convenience Store Association. Typically, convenience store owners have resisted state and local efforts to control access to harmful tobacco products to youth given their fat profit margins.

Mayor Singh-Allen is a member of a Democratic political group called The NewDEAL. That group describes itself as "a selective national network of pro-growth progressive state and local elected officials" with a focus on "addressing critical issues, including: climate change, voting rights, education, broadband access, high-quality childcare, and housing."

The group was contacted yesterday seeking comments on Singh-Allen's acceptance of a campaign contribution from R. J. Reynolds given the group's progressive stances and tobacco companies long history of lying about the danger of its products. As of this posting, they have not responded.