Paul Bass Photo
The counter at Dix.
The operators of a Newhallville corner store have agreed to stop selling single cigarettes. But they’re not happy about it.
Dix Deli at 706 Dixwell Ave. acquiesced to the agreement as part of a broader negotiation with neighborhood pastors, said Ahmed, who works behind the counter and identified himself as the cousin of the shop’s owner. (He declined to give his last name.)
Following state and federal citations against Dix for violating rules for tobacco sales and for wage theft against immigrant workers, the clergy members threatened to work to shut down the store for good unless the owners agreed to a series of change.
Those changes include refraining from “selling drug paraphernalia including, ‘roses,’ ceramic or glass tubes, glass pipes, individual pads, screens, small ‘coin” type bags, high heat lighters, or other devices commonly used to smoke, ingest, or sell narcotics”; and from “selling or otherwise providing” loosies, or single cigarettes.
The ministers Tuesday delivered a draft “Good Neighbor Agreement” containing those provisions to the store. The Rev. Boise Kimber Wednesday said the group will “move to the next level” if they don’t receive a signed copy of the agreement by next Tuesday. (Click here to read the document.)
Ahmed said the store is complying with the request, even though loosies constitute a significant amount of its revenue. (His uncle couldn’t be reached for comment.)
“We sold loosies and [glassine drug] baggies, it’s true,” Ahmed said. “There’s a thousand stores in New Haven. Everyone sells baggies and loosies. You want to shut someone down? Why are they pointing the finger at us?”
Kimber said the store’s previous legal violations made it a “good place to start” a citywide campaign.
He also noted that it is illegal to sell loosies (under Section 12 – 314 of the state general statutes).
“The law needs to be enforced,” Kimber said on a recent episode of WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
“Kids buy ‘em,” he said of loosies. “They buy ‘em on the way to school. They buy them coming back from school. They use them to smoke pot with. There are adults who use them to smoke heroin with. If it is illegal, why are they still selling them in our community?”
Assistant Police Chief Tony Reyes, who oversees patrol, said the department enforces the law on loosies and considers the issue important. The cops don’t go out to conduct loosie investigations specifically. Instead they often find loosie violations while investigating, say, reports of illegal drugs being sold out of a store.
Ziaur Rahman, behind the counter at Dux Market at Chapel and Kensington, claimed the store doesn’t sell loosies.
Reyes said the sale of loosies hurts neighborhoods by drawing an undesirable clientele: “People that are strung out, the people that can’t afford box of cigarettes” are often “out there selling drugs, using drugs,” he said.
“And it’s illegal. Pure and simple.”
Loosies generally sell for 50 cents to 75 cents a pop. A full pack of 20 cigarettes generally costs between $9 and $10.
The state Department of Revenue Services (DRS), which enforces tobacco laws, also regularly transmits the loosie message in its regular inspections, according to spokesman James Carson. He said a DRS inspector hit stores throughout New Haven, including Westville, East Rock, Whalley Avenue, and the east side, on Tuesday.
“The sale of untaxed tobacco products not only deprives the state of revenue, but also unfairly puts other businesses who are doing the right thing and following the law, at a competitive disadvantage,” Carson stated.
C&L at Edgewood and Platt.
Numerous corner store managers and employees interviewed this week claimed they have stopped selling loosies.
A worker at C&L Minimarket 2 across the street from the K‑8 Augusta Lewis Troup School at Platt Street and Edgewood Avenue said his boss said to stop selling loosies last month after a visit from an inspector.
“They were hitting all the stores up,” he said. He predicted little impact: The customers, he argued, “are not going to go anywhere. Trust me. Somebody’s selling them out on the street.” His boss did not respond to a request for comment. (The federal Food and Drug Administration warned C&L and Dix Deli earlier this year to stop selling cigarettes to minors.)
Gary Atkins, a customer of O+R Deli and Grocery on Chapel Street near the corner of Orchard, said the loosie ban doesn’t affect him because he doesn’t smoke. (“I have lupus.”) But he questioned its value, especially compared to bigger problems facing society. He argued that many loosie customers are hard-working people who can’t always shell out $10 for a full pack.
Gary Atkins.
“People at work right now come and have a cigarette. It doesn’t hurt nobody, does it?” said Atkins (pictured), a cook at Yale. “The state’s not making money [off loosie sales]. That’s what it’s about, right? We worry about loosies, but we’ve got hundreds of people downtown starving right now.”
His friend Montez Williams was with him Wednesday morning, taking a smoke break from his job as a chef across the street at Yale-New Haven Hospital’s St. Raphael campus. Williams had a full pack of Newports on him.
Williams said he used to buy loosies in his neighborhood in Newhallville until the price rose this summer to 75 cents. He did the math. It didn’t add up.
“They think it’s cheaper,” he said of loosie customers. But 20 cigarettes at 75 cents comes to $15.
He and Atkins agreed that a bigger challenge for law enforcement lies in the ability of people to buy packs for $4.75 down south, then resell them at a steep mark-up in New Haven.
Give me a break.The only thing this store can be charge with is the illegal sale of Loosie.It is not illegal to selling drug the type of drug paraphernalia he has in his store.In fact Eric Garner sold loosie to surport his family.Across this country
Loosie are part of the under ground economy.
Criminalizing the hustle: Policing poor people's survival strategies from Eric Garner to Alton Sterling
Garner sold loose cigarettes; Alton Sterling hawked CDs — and they both died at the hands of police
Eric Garner sold loose cigarettes. Alton Sterling hawked CDs. Both died at the hands of police while seemingly on the job.Lester Spence, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University and the author of "Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics." "The black men most likely to be left out of the formal economy who have to engage in various illegal hustles to make ends meet .
http://www.salon.com/2016/07/08/criminalizing_the_hustle_policing_poor_peoples_survival_strategies_from_erin_garner_to_alton_sterling/
If I was him I would throw that contract in the fire.Only thing that can be enfocred is the illegal sale of Loosie.