Posted on 09/01/2002 5:46:10 AM PDT by sarcasm
Every so often, customers stroll into Nenex Deli and Grocery in the Wakefield section of the Bronx and ask for a pack of cigarettes. Only when the clerk asks for $7 do they realize their mistake. They've just unwittingly crossed from Mount Vernon in Westchester County to the Bronx, where cigarettes cost $1.50 more per pack. "Customers come in, and when I tell them the price, they say, 'No way, I don't want it,'" said Naser Mozeb, a clerk at Nenex, just two blocks from the Mount Vernon-Bronx border. Nenex isn't alone. Wakefield clerks say the high cost of cigarettes in New York City - between $7 and $7.50 per pack - is driving their customers north to Mount Vernon or west to nearby Yonkers. Business started to decline immediately after the city enacted a $1.50 sales tax on tobacco products six weeks ago, clerks said. "Everybody goes to Mount Vernon," said clerk Obaid Al-Fata at F&A Deli, across from Nenex. "I don't blame them. They save a lot of money." Al-Fata said the store used to make $3,000 a week selling cigarettes and cigars. Now it makes a mere $500 to $700 a week. At Nenex, workers used to order about 50 cartons a week. Since the tax hike, they have yet to reorder. The problem is not only the loss of tobacco sales but also the extras smokers buy. "They buy everything here - a beer, a sandwich, a soda," said Mozeb, who estimates the store's total sales are down 25% for the month. No loopholes There is little hope of getting around the tax. The city keeps track of the stores' cigarette sales by checking supplier computer records. Inspectors also randomly visit stores, checking stamps on the bottoms of packs to ensure they are state-purchased and state-approved. Around Wakefield, smokers admit they stock up when they leave the Bronx. "My wife works in Yonkers, and she buys for me and her because it's much cheaper," said Randy Leckey, 45, a smoker for 25 years. "Prices here are ridiculous." Jose Martinez, 26, drives up the street to an Amoco service station in Mount Vernon, where he pays $5.50 a pack. The trip saves him about $10 a week on his pack-a-day Newport habit. "If I really need it, I'll buy it here," Martinez said. "But usually, I'll go to the gas station." Meanwhile, Westchester is reaping the benefits of Wakefield's losses. At Polanco Supermarket in Mount Vernon, a few blocks from White Plains Road in the Bronx, owner Niurka Polanco said cigarette sales are up. "People from the Bronx are buying up here," she said. "And they buy more packs together - four or five at a time." Polanco said the smokers also buy other products, like milk and lottery tickets. Nearby, at Lachmin Grocery on Mount Vernon Avenue, owner Mohan Sahai sympathized with the south-of-the-border businesses. "It does help my store, but I do feel sorry for them in the Bronx," he said. "They still have the same overhead expenses. That doesn't go down." The Bronx store owners try to remain optimistic, hanging on to the hope that Westchester will raise its prices, too. "If cigarettes go up in Westchester, that will be good," said Raf Halshman, a worker at F & A Deli. "We have to wait and be patient." The change better come soon, said Ahmed Mohammed, a clerk at Little Grocery on White Plains Road in the Bronx. With its cigarette sales down 75% this month, the store is struggling. "We're just a candy store," Mohammed said. "Instead of making a profit, now we're just making a living."
What stupidity.
Oh, but wait. Won't that just mean that smokers living along the border with other states will just cross the state line to purchase cigarettes at a lower prices?
Well then. We just need to get Hillary, our beloved savior Senator, to sponsor legislation to raise federal tobacco taxes, so that everyone will be forced to pay more for smokes.
Way to go New York. You raise tobacco taxes in hopes of raising revenue and the opposite happens. Funny, isn't? The same thing happens when income tax rates are increased. Most of the time, revenues decline.
"If cigarettes go up in Westchester, that will be good," said Raf Halshman,"What stupidity.
Unfortunately, it's the same stupidity that informs uniform drinking age laws across the country. (That and a healthy dose of threats to withhold federal highway money.)
Wow! I could be a politician with a statement like that! ;-}
The problem is not only the loss of tobacco sales but also the extras smokers buy. "They buy everything here - a beer, a sandwich, a soda," said Mozeb, who estimates the store's total sales are down 25% for the month.
The PRISSY NOSED ANTI-SMOKERS who want to ban smoking and raise the taxes to high heaven have no respect for anyone but themselves. They do NOT realize that smokers DO make up at least 30% of society!
It’s really sad that it has come to this, but if it wasn’t for the anti-smokers, the anti-smoking health coalitions and the anti-smoking LAWMAKERS, the stores and restaurants wouldn’t be IN this fix!! 
For example, if you tax cigarettes here, I'll buy them there, pinheaded twits.
If you raise the level of confiscatory sales tax, the voluntary flow of money from the citizen's pocket to the computerized cash register lowers dramatically. The net impact of higher rates of tax is often lower tax revenue.
You cannot multiply 'S' sales by 't' tax rate, then change 't', without impacting 'S'. Call it bureaucratic blowback.
The mainstay of the Liberal party is insufficiently intellectually-gifted to comprehend basic economics.
FORK YOU, buddy! People will be forced to go to the Internet, Reservations or to rolling their own! Smokers are a lot smarter then he thinks!
and
No! That means that more smokers will buy from the Internet, the Reservations or roll their own. Simple as that!
I say SHOW ME THE MONEY! BloomingIdiot will say ANYTHING to make sheeple think he is right about this! I say "show me the money!" Proof is in the PUDDING!
I don't believe his spews for one minute.
Oh yes, you have learned you lessons well. :-}}}}
I blame the tobaco industry. When the first ban on advertising on television was proposed they should have fought it to the bitter end. They never should have given in. That was the first step.
This ban established the legality of banning "commercial" speech. I find it strange to have a consitution that allows pornography, but not some commercial advertising.
The next step was the no smoking areas in restaurants. This should have been fought, but again, they gave in. (The tobaco industries have billions of dollars for advertisement, you are telling me they could not have established teams of lawyers to fight these local ordinances. Well they didn't, and in a short amount of time they went from haveing non-smoking areas to completly banning smoking in the bar and restaurants, and from there to public buildings and now I see they are after public spaces."
I do not see this battle as a "smoking" issue, but as a freedom issue.
We are already hearing the rumbles of how bad fast food is for us, how long will be it be that there is a ban on fast food restaurants from advertising on TV?
The power to tax, is the power to destroy. Once they establish the ability to tax cirgarettes, they will soon begin taxing other items, all of course for our own good.
Our only hope now is that they over reach themselves and there is a policitcal backlash, but I don't have much hope this will occur.
I smoked More Menthol 120 for years! No other cigarette could compare. Well, last year, when Maine raised the cigarette taxes ONE MORE TIME, and they went up to about $50 dollars a carton, we beat it down to the local Smoke Shop. I have been rolling our own a year this past June.
I buy menthol tobacco in a bag, and they taste GREAT! I feel like you: maybe it's all in the mind. But at least we aren't paying into the state coffers anymore. FEELS GREAT! And the savings is phenomenal.
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