There’s a new black market for drugs on the streets of New York City, but the drug’s not illegal, unless you want to use it in a restaurant, bar, or any other public space. Yep, we’re talking about cigarettes, or as they’re called on the street…“loosies;”
By 8:30 a.m., amid the procession of sleepy-eyed office workers and addicts from the nearby methadone clinic, Lonnie Loosie plants himself in the middle of the sidewalk on Eighth Avenue in Midtown. Addressing no one in particular, he calls out his one-size-fits-all greeting: “Newports, Newports, packs and loosies.”
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Rarely does a minute go by without a customer stopping just long enough to pass a dollar bill to Lonnie Loosie, known to the police by his given name, Lonnie Warner, 50. They clench the two “loosies” — as single cigarettes are called — that he thrusts back in return.
Soon Mr. Warner’s two partners, both younger men, arrive for the day and fan out along the same block. By midmorning, the block to the south is occupied by Carlton, who sells loosies, as does Carlton’s younger brother, Norman, 54.
A few blocks north, another man sells cigarettes near a check-cashing storefront. Add to these a few roving vendors who poach territory when they can.
Itinerant cigarette vendors have long been a fixture in some parts of the city, like bodegas that sell individual cigarettes in violation of state law. But with cigarette prices up and the number of smoke-friendly places down, the black market for loosies is now thriving on the streets.
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 are now 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.”
Don’t politicians understand the concept of prohibition? When you prohibit something, people just want it more and will do whatever is necessary to get the product, or in the case of these entrepreneurs, sell the product on street corners. New York City with Micheal Bloomberg as Mayor is Nanny Statism writ large.
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So, was it really the Mauor’s plan to stimulate the local economy? LOL