Let's see...
$3.76 at a Hammond, Ind...
Looks like an opportunity.
It's already an opportunity. I live in the neighborhood of Chicago that borders Hammond. The long-term disparity in taxes (cigarettes, gasoline, sales taxes) between Illinois/Cook County/Chicago and Northwest Indiana has destroyed a lot of small business in my part of Chicago. There is no gas station in my neighborhood and the nearest one in Illinois is 4-5 miles away. There are no regular convenience stores in my neighborhood. The ones that do make it also have liquor sales or a delicatessen or Mexican foods. And, if you drive down Burnham Ave. through Calumet City and Lansing, you find the same thing. The only gas stations there also have repair services.
But in Indiana, literally the first thing you see upon crossing the border are gas stations, tobacco shops, all kinds of commerce.
I stopped smoking cigarettes a year ago. I was buying a carton of Pall Malls in Hammond for $23 and some change.
What kind of fool thinks that a person is going to spend three times as much, and over half of it on taxes, for a carton of smokes in Chicago, if they have other options?
The kind of fools who sit on the county board, evidently.
Let's see:
Retail sales price in Cook Cty: $7.59
Cost of $3.76 at a Hammond, Ind...
$ 7.59
-$ 3.76
= Gross profit of: $3.83 per pack.
Discount $1.00 per pack to corner the Market = $2.83 net profit per pack.
Hmmmmm. Need a partner?