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NYC Hikes Price of Pack of Cigarettes to $13

Mayor Bill de Blasio has signed legislation raising the minimum price for a pack of cigarettes to $13 in New York City, making it the most expensive place to buy cigarettes in the U.S.

Health Department officials say the hike from $10.50 will make the city the most expensive place to buy cigarettes in the country. The $13-a-pack cost includes taxes.

The law goes into effect on June 1.

Another bill signed by the mayor gradually reduces by half the number of licenses issued to retailers to sell tobacco products.

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7 Comments

  • CR

    And guys like this are loving every such act by our betters at City Hall. Increasing bans, taxes and regulation are great for his grey-market business.

    NYT, April 4, 2011:

    “The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has outlawed smoking in restaurants, bars and playgrounds, and outside hospital entrances. Even city parks, beaches and pedestrian plazas will soon be off limits to smokers. Then there have been successive rounds of taxes — the most recent one, a $1.60 rise in the state tax in July — that raised the price of a pack of cigarettes to $12.50 at many Midtown newsstands.

    “The tax went up, and we started selling 10 times as much,” Mr. Warner said. “Bloomberg thinks he’s stopping people from smoking. He’s just turning them onto loosies.”
    …
    “Mr. Warner said he believed that the official price was above what many people were willing or able to pay. As evidence, he noted that his customers included office workers from as far south as 32nd Street and as far north as 40th Street — people with good-paying jobs, as far as he can discern.”

    • Caring for our own!

      According to inflation, the $12.50 in 2011 is actually HIGHER than the $13 today.

      Our mayors are not even raising it enough to keep up with inflation.

      $12.50 in April 2011 is actually $13.60 today!

      So the prices effectively went DOWN by it only being $13 today.

  • jdf007

    The latest estimates are that 80% of cigarettes in NYC are now illegal sales. When I first heard of this it was about 60% or so. The numbers will rise with this new increase.
    Who is paying this amount? Almost nobody apparently. They may as well raise the price to 100 dollars a pack and have the politicians metal-craft each other some awards for doing good work.

    And where do the illegal tax-free goods come from? Dangerous robberies, smash and grabs?

    Remember what Mr. Gardner was doing prior to resisting arrest.