Albany, N.Y. (WBEN) - Convenience store operators in New York State do not support Gov. Kathy Hochul's plan to ban menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products, while raising the cigarette tax by a dollar, to $5.35.
"I represent about 7,500 convenience stores from Buffalo to Long Island," said Kent Sopris, President of the New York Association of Convenience Stores on WBEN Monday.
"The Governor's tax increase and flavor ban, while intended to lower smoking rates, will actually backfire. It's not going to work."
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Prohibition and regressive taxes, Sopris said, will actually drive the sales of product from stores to native reservations, where you don't pay taxes, and to other states where taxes are significantly lower, or to a black market which he claims is prevalent in the state.
"What this is going to do, is make consumers buy the product somewhere else," added Sopris.
This proposal seems to be mirroring the state's push to ban flavored vaping products a few years ago.
"Vaping products have been illegal since 2019, he said. "However, they are still very popular consumer items. How is that possible?," he asked rhetorically. "People go to illicit retailers or native American reservations."
Regarding the one dollar increase in the state cigarette tax, to $5.35 a pack, which would propel New York State to have the highest cigarette tax in the nation, Sopris does not expect it will have any real impact on smoking rates.
"A one dollar tax, is one of the most regressive taxes you can find, and the only people who are going to feel that pain are working class folks who are just trying to get by. And they can avoid that tax if they want to."
The flavored tobacco ban and increase in the cigarette tax are part of the Governor's state budget proposal.