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First they had to find new places to light up. Now some are seeking new places to buy them.
The reason: a 75-cent rise in the state levy on cigarette packs that goes into effect Thursday. It will bring the tax to $2 a pack, which will push the cost of some brands past $6.
“It stinks,” said Doug Tomaszewski, 47, an auto assembler from Oak Park. “How many more times are they going to tax us?”
To avoid the steep surcharge, Metro Detroit smokers said Tuesday they’re mulling new ways to buy cigarettes.
Like sneaking across the state line into Ohio or Indiana, where the tax is only 55 cents. Or via the Internet from states with low taxes.
Frank Arabo, who owns Smoky’s Cigarette Outlet in Berkley and a second shop in Royal Oak, calls the increase “cheap and dirty.”
“All they do is pick on cigarette people,” he said.
Arabo’s two stores have been doing a brisk business since last week as shoppers stockpile smokes before the tax increase.
“Stock up now!!!” read a sign on his counter. “Beat the cigarette tax increase.”
Some smokers are considering an even more drastic response: quitting.
Stopping is easier said than done. Local residents What to Do if Your Kid cheap Smokes or Chews Tobacco have vowed to stop before, for health or financial reasons, only to return to their tobacco rush.
In fact, most of the alternatives contemplated by smokers are destined to be short-lived, said cigarette merchants.
People eventually return to their buying habits, store owners said. That’s especially true when it deals with something as addictive as tobacco.
Patrick Wise, 43, an insurance adjuster from Royal Oak, smokes a pack of Marlboros a day. He tried to save money by rolling his own. But he eventually returned to the ready-made variety.
“It’s a matter of convenience,” he said. “That’s the American way, isn’t it?”
The latest tax levy has Wise, who has smoked since age 12, considering a return to cigarette making.
By the time the dust settles, Michigan officials expect the sales of taxable cigarettes to drop 15 percent. That includes people who will quit or buy their smokes from non-Michigan sources.
One of four adults in the state smokes, according to state figures. That’s slightly above the national average.
Michigan imposed the 75-cent tax rise for the same reason it increased the levy by 50 cents in August 2002: to plug a shortfall in the state budget. The twin boosts have nearly tripled the tax in two years. Michigan’s new tax is the nation’s second-highest, surpassed only by New Jersey.
Smokers say they’re tired of being singled out as the solution to the state’s financial problems.
“Do you take food stamps?” customer Edward Dinha jokingly asked the clerk at Smoky’s Cigarette Outlet in Berkley. “That’s the only thing I can afford to pay with these days.”
Dinha, 44, an environmental operations manager from Farmington Hills, smokes cigars, and that tax will jump 12 percent Thursday.
He switched from cigarettes a decade ago after the state’s first tax boost. He wonders when the surcharges will end.