Tootsie Roll's recipe includes rare ability to sidestep sugar tariff

Crain's Chicago Business reports:

All that Tootsie Roll Industries Inc.'s Ellen and Melvin Gordon brought with them to Chicago Congressman Dan Rostenkowski's Washington, D.C., office 20 years ago was a bag of their company's signature candy, but they walked away with a deal that's the envy of the candymaking world.

The Gordons won an exemption from a tariff that nearly doubles the cost of imported sugar for other U.S. candymakers. It's a financial advantage that rivals can only seethe over.

"Mel and Ellen are the luckiest people on earth because of that exemption," says Patrick Huffman, president of Warrell Corp., a Pennsylvania-based candy company.

Tootsie Roll is believed to be one of the only U.S. candy companies that can import sugar without paying the tariff. The exemption enhances the company's value at a time when the industry is consolidating and many observers expect it to be sold.

What ever happened to the concept of "equal protection under the law"?