We’d call it a no-brainer, but we’re still happy to give the Forest Park Village Council full credit for passing a new 1% tax on groceries sold locally. 

The back story here is that Gov. JB Pritzker, in a show of political theater, made a splash last year when he killed the same tax on a state level but allowed individual burgs across the state to implement a local grocery tax.  

Local communities were already paying the state grocery tax. So with this change, the cost to shoppers will be identical, and the essential revenue to local towns will remain. 

Other communities surrounding Forest Park have, or are about to, put the new local tax in place. Brookfield, River Forest, Riverside and North Riverside are all in or soon will be. Oak Park is currently standing on its virtue, but we expect wiser heads will prevail and it will impose the tax, too. 

For Forest Park, cash strapped as always, this is real money. Walmart sells a lot of groceries. Then there is Living Fresh Market. And while Ed’s Way closed last March, Aldi is now open on Harlem and its revenues will far outstrip what Ed’s Way contributed. One estimate offered by Commissioner Maria Maxham put the round number at $400,000. 

That is simply too much money for Forest Park, or most any town, to ignore.