Increase in Price of Papers Is Subject of IRS Complaint

Peter W. Galbraith '73 filed a complaint Wednesday with the Internal Revenue Service charging Out of Town News and Nini's Corner with violation of the price guidelines of President Nixon's Phase II economic program.

Out of Town News and Nini's Corner are two of the Cambridge newsstands which raised their prices from 15 cents to 20 cents for out of town papers last week.

Nini, proprietor of Nini's Corner, reacted strongly yesterday to Galbraith's charges. He said that Galbraith should "do some study, and not pick on the people."

Meanwhile, Cahaly's Market yesterday revoked its hike in the price of out of town newspapers. Cahaly said that an alleged representative of his newspaper distributor informed him last Sunday of a rise in the distribution cost. Cahaly went along with the Cambridge-wide 5 per cent rise in price. He later learned, however, that distribution cost had not gone up. Cahaly said that since the sale of out of town newspapers is not too important to 15 cents.

However, Nini said that overhead costs made it difficult for his newsstand to survive at all. "The help gets more than I'm getting," he said. He added that "it's expensive to pay wages to guys for standing out in the cold."

The manager of Nini's Corner noted yesterday that newsstands provide a service. He said that customers receive a product that has not been tossed into some mud puddle by a careless delivery boy. Newsstands in Boston have been charging 20 cents for papers for months, he added. However, he said that the Corner might lower prices if others did so.

On Monday, following the price hike, Sheldon Cohen, president of Out of Town News, attributed the cost rise to the competition of hawkers and the burdens of high overhead for newsstands.

Galbraith, stressing that it is easy for anyone to file a complaint, said yesterday that he plans to file an additional complaint Monday with the Better Business Bureau. He charged that the newsstands were "small time chiselers" who exercised a monopoly in the Square