"Bloomberg Thinks He's Stopping People from Smoking" [The Dark Side of Gotham]

ATR ^ | 2011-04-05 | Joshua Culling

[92nina]

...It's easy to see why single cigarette purchases are popular and profitable in Manhattan. Lonnie Warner, the black market salesman mentioned above, buys cartons of cigarette shipped to New York City (cigarette tax: $5.85 per pack) from Virginia (cigarette tax: 30 cents per pack) illegally and sells them for a profit a couple cigarettes at a time. It's not legal, but it's lucrative.

The NYT story reads like an episode of The Wire, with Warner shuffling from block to block in search of action, retreating to Harlem to replenish his stash via a network of suppliers. The constant struggle for control of the market can be as bloody as the drug trade. New York in particular has seen violence in response to cigarette tax increases for nearly a decade.

In New York such tax hikes are particularly problematic from a budgetary standpoint, as naive politicians claim to be weaning people off cigarettes by artificially increasing the price. In reality they are simply shifting the tax-paid sales to other states or the black market...

Read more: http://www.atr.org/bloomberg-thinks-hes-stopping-people-smoking-a6016#ixzz1IfiB2LRw

[92nina]

For every service not offered by trade in the light of day, there is a black market ready to step in...

Take this article and others I found to the fight to the Libs on their own turf; put the Left on the defensive at at Digg and at Reddit and in Delicious and Stumbleupon

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Lonnie Warner, the black market salesman mentioned above, buys cartons of cigarette shipped to New York City (cigarette tax: $5.85 per pack) from Virginia (cigarette tax: 30 cents per pack) illegally and sells them for a profit a couple cigarettes at a time.

That's pretty much how they do it in prison.

NYC is a prison. Pass it on.

[Lazlo in PA]

This is nothing new. NYC has had unfair taxes on smokes for years. I used to take note from friends who lived in the Upper East Side that they never had tax stamps on their smokes. When asked about it, they would proudly tell me how they beat the system. That’s how things work when the Gov’t becomes overbearing. The black market takes off. At least someone is making cash in this economy, i.e.; the racketeers.

[camerongood210]

And for every dollar New Yorkers spend on Mr. Walker's contraband cigarettes, state government is losing about 50 cents in foregone revenue. Maybe they'll get the message and cut the tax to a more realistic level, New Hampshire style.

The more realistic outcome is the politicians see a drop in tax revenue from cigarette sales and increase the taxes even more to make up for the lost revenue.

[Terry Mross]

Quit smoking 2 years 9 months back and thank GOD for it. But it’s legal so the government should stay out of it. Or outlaw tobacco all together.

[buzzer]

So far for “free” trade ....

[gwilhelm56]

Stupid BLOOMTURD!!!

I buy Indian made cigarettes from my reservation. I save about $60 a Carton. Maybe I should stock up and take a trip to NYC...

[Vendome]

LOL

I have friends around 91st and Lexington who just brag about it. Not suppose to smoke in the building so everyone just goes to the roof.

Couple of people are on butt posse to keep the ashtrays and roof clean.

[Bigh4u2]

If BloomingIdiot doesn’t think people are going across the ‘border’ to buy cigarettes to escape his ‘shakedown’ tax, then he’s dreaming.

[Lazamataz]

I had forgotten about those tax stamp things they had in NYS on cigs. Here in Atlanta we ain’t got that thar nonsense!

[Lazlo in PA]

I just flipped my pack of Marlboro Lights (Which are not lights anymore because that was deemed deceptive advertising by the Gov’t) and on the bottom it says:

Keystone State
Tax Paid
89388
20 Cigarettes
Keystone State

We still have them here in PA. I am surprised we still don’t have the stamps over the mouth of bottles of liqueur anymore. Gov’t need to make sure they get their cut dontcha know.

[jnsun]

Bloomberg! educated originally I believes as an engineer, hard to believe:

A few years ago when the total ban on smoking in "public" eating places in NYC was proposed then passed he presented the argument, confirmed by the NYC Health Dept, that twelve thousand people per year died from "smoking related illness." So let us not question that.

But those twelve thousand people per year are still going to die sooner or later, are they not? - it's not like they're JC. It may be they will live a little longer so that for some period after the total ban the average life span in NYC will increase - but it will stabilize to some rate independent of there being smoking or not, No?

And there is absolutely no proof whatsoever that deaths, or health costs, that occur with the smoking ban are less expensive, or burdensome, to the citizenry than those which would occur otherwise with smoking. That is, those who would otherwise have died of "smoking related illness" will still incur health costs, hip replacements, coronaries, etc. etc. just as likely more costly than the smoking related ones, No? (A kind of allusion to Obama's death panels).

So for what possible civil reason should there be a denial of the right to smoke in a privately owned area as long as any individual has a choice to enter or not? There is NO civil reason. Indeed individual choice was the implied basis for the warning on cigarette packs.

In other words we have a blatant entry of authoritarian government imposing itself in the arena of individual decision. In the most fundamental way, a world view of disrespect for one's peer to make his own choices. Arrogance.

And thus we have Michael Bloomberg. Do not let anyone tell you Michael Bloomberg is not a Leftist.

[92nina]

You are so right about Bloomburg. What’s more, 12,000 people dying a year from “smoking-related illnesses,” in a city of around 8,000,000 residents a year? The city survives, somehow...