Just spent two weeks vacation in NY and noticed that cigarettes were selling for around $5.50 a pack. Being from VA I brought my own, around $2.50 a pack. When we crossed the PA border there was a smoke shop selling packs at $3.50 each. My entire take away of NY is they have fallen for the premise that envy is healthy for them. They have chased out about every industry they ever had with taxes and union rules and now are exporting the current tax base and future tax base by raising taxes more. My wife's cousin own a $200K house and pay over $7,000 a year in property taxes. We own a $600K house and pay less than $4,000. The differene is we actually get quality services for our money. They are quickly reaching the point of renting their homes from the state. Commercial real estate is nuts in NY, most of it just gets dumped on the cities and locales because of the property taxes and sales taxes make downtown retail space useless. I notice one other feature of NY it seems that down staters have concluded that it is cheaper to park welfare recipients upstate than keep them local. I don't think NY state implemented the 94 welfare rules. Just my observation.
I am sure they were priced at over 7-bucks a pack.
Oh well. $5.50 is still a lot.