Make every smoker a smuggler. Great idea.
It isn’t just bootleggers who benefit from the high taxes. If neighboring states or counties have lower taxes, they will benefit too. When I stopped smoking cigarettes about 10 years ago, I was paying under $3 a pack in Indiana, a mile away from my home in Chicago. Stores in Chicago were selling them for $7 or $8 dollars. Today a pack goes for about $5 in Indiana and $11 in Chicago. There is a flourishing smoke shop business just over the line in Indiana, and gas stations benefit too. And speaking of gas stations —high fuel taxes in Chicago and Illinois make gas stations few and far between on the south side of Chicago. They used to be there, but they went out of business. There are plenty of gas stations just over the line in Indiana.
De Blasio obviously never took a class in basic economics. Raising the price of cigarettes through taxes will mean the market buys fewer cigarettes or will seek cheaper substitutes...namely bootlegged cigarettes. Haven’t NY Indian tribes figured out that they can sell cigarettes on their reservations without these taxes and make millions selling to visitors?
What is DeBlasio’s vice?
Let ban that.