loosie: words: When the Smoke Clears

When the Smoke Clears

Bloomberg takes on cigarettes

by B.D. | 2002.10.18

As Mayor Bloomberg intensifies his crusade against tobacco, New York City smokers have begun taking extreme measures to satisfy their craving for sweet nicotine. With Bloomberg proposing a ban on smoking in bars, restaurants and bowling alleys, the public's reaction to tobacco prohibition is likely to grow even more intense.

Less than a year ago, a standard pack of cigarettes in New York City was priced at around $4.50. In response to the tough economic times, the boys in Albany added a state tax of $1.50 on to each pack. In an attempt to bolster his struggling city, Bloomberg went apeshit and plopped on an addition city tax of $1.50. As such, a pack now costs somewhere in the ballpark of $7.50. On a ten-pack carton of stoges, inhabitants of Gotham are anal-probed for $30 in state and city taxes.

In stark comparison, Virginia residents pay 25 cents in taxes on the same product. When it's all said and done, New York City residents pay far more for their smokes than anyone else in the country.

Since the tax-hike was instituted in July, New Yorkers have become resourceful in finding new sources for their cancer-sticks. Numbers have not yet been tallied, there seems to be little indication that heavy smokers are putting any additional money into the city and state coffers.

Most of the pack-a-dayers aren't shelling out an extra twenty bucks a week at the corner bodega. Cheap cigarettes are only a few mouse-clicks away on the Internet, where a carton of Marlboros can be purchased for thirty bucks instead of sixty. People make day-trips to tax-free Indian reservations or nearby states with cheaper prices. Many New Yorkers have begun rolling their own smokes - bags of Drum and Natural American Spirit are no longer uncommon sights.

The element of criminal activity that accompanied the Prohibition of alcohol has resurged. In impoverished areas, where people are less likely to have the Internet or the credit cards for online ordering, bootleggers do a brisk trade. 125th Street in Harlem and Fulton Mall in Brooklyn are home to a plethora of gentlemen who will gladly sell you a $5 pack of Newports from the carton-filled garbage bag dangling from his shoulder.

Guys peddling smuggled stoges are far less troubling than the acts of violence that can be attributed to the tax hike. Two recent robberies in Brooklyn were directly related to the newfound value of cigarettes.

From the August 12th edition of the Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill Courier:

A Red Hook grocier lost more than he bargained for last week when he went to follow a group of armed men who had just robbed his store. Police said that the owner of Angie's Fast Food, 291 VanBrundt Street, was working behind the counter when three males entered. One of the suspects pulled a gun and ordered him to get behind the counter. The man's two accomplices then went behind the counter, taking twenty cartons of cigarettes. When the suspects fled, the owner followed them down Pioneer Street. What he did not know, however, was that when he was away, several other people entered his store and removed food and cigarettes, leaving him with next to nothing when he returned.

A gas station attendant on Hamilton Avenue was stabbed in the arm during a robbery Saturday night. Police said that an employee of Citgo station, located at 289 Hamilton Avenue, was going about his business that evening when a Hispanic man with short blonde hair entered. Without saying a word the man grabbed twenty packs of cigarettes form behind the counter and put them in his bag. When the employee confronted the thief, the suspect pushed and punched him. The man finally pulled a razor blade and threatened to cut the employee claiming that he had AIDS. Before fleeing, the suspect cut the victim in the arm and ran off. The wound the employee suffered was minor, officials said. The cigarettes taken were valued at $104, policed said. Cops are currently looking for the suspect.

With cartons of cigarettes now worth nearly fifty dollars when broken down and sold as individual packs, a quick heist can net a stick-up artist around a thousand dollars worth of Marlboros, Newports and Camels. Not only are New York's bodegas being under-priced by the Internet, Indians and out-of-state stores, they're also being targeted by violent criminals (or at least more so than they already were).

There is no question that smoking is a deadly and detestable habit. But Bloomberg's excessive taxation is only serving to transmogrify a simple centuries-old practice into an uncontrollable underworld culture. If smoking is indeed outlawed in bars and lounges, how far away are cigarette speakeasies? Probably far, but still, the whole shit is stupid.