Big NY cigarette dealer gets 10 years in prison
One of New York’s biggest cigarette dealers was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison in a case involving the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of untaxed tobacco from the state’s Indian reservations.
Rodney Morrison, 43, was originally accused in 2004 of running a violent criminal enterprise that was one of the leading sources for New York’s huge trade in black market cigarettes.
But after being acquitted of murder, robbery and arson, and having a racketeering conviction stemming from the tax case tossed out because of legal flaws, Morrison faced sentencing only on a single gun possession count. In addition to the 10-year term, Morrison was fined $75,000 and will be placed on three years supervised release when he leaves prison.
He could have been released on time served, but U.S. District Judge Denis Hurley gave him the maximum, saying “he has failed to lead any kind of law abiding life.”
Despite Morrison’s acquittal, the judge said he still believes Morrison orchestrated the crimes that were committed by others, including the 2003 shooting death of a rival cigarette dealer on a Brooklyn rooftop.
“I think he is fully capable of doing those types of things again,” the judge said. He also noted Morrison’s prior convictions for robbery, drug possession and criminally negligent homicide in the 1980s shooting of a 6-year-old.
Before being sentenced, Morrison told the judge the child’s killing was unintentional; he said he and a friend were firing a shotgun for target practice. “We were young and being foolish, it was totally a freak accident.”
He also appealed to the judge that he is a changed man. “I have learned from the experience,” he said. “I have respect for the law.”
Morrison’s lawyers said they will consider appealing the sentence. “Although we all disagree with the sentence, we have enormous respect for Judge Hurley,” lead attorney William Murphy said.
Because Morrison has been held without bail since his arrest in August 2004, that time will be applied to the 10-year sentence, officials said. Hurley also granted a defense request that the U.S. Bureau of Prisons place Morrison at a facility close to the New York metropolitan area so he can be close to his family.
Hurley, who previously described Morrison as “a cunning individual with dangerous proclivities,” vacated his racketeering conviction for trafficking contraband cigarettes on April 16. Hurley said too many elements of state laws regarding reservation tobacco sales were unsettled to prosecute someone.
Federal prosecutors appealed that ruling on Friday. Neither assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case commented after the sentencing.
Reservation stores sold more than 24 million cartons of cigarettes in 2009, about 1 out of every 3 packs sold in the state. That booming business exists entirely because of the tribes refusal to collect taxes on the sales, allowing them to sell at a huge discount.
Morrison is a non-Indian from Brooklyn who gained control of a reservation smoke shop on the Poospatuck Indian Reservation in Mastic after marrying into the tribe. The reservation is about 60 miles east of New York City.
State law requires taxes to be paid on any packs not sold to tribe members, but New York suspended attempts to enforce that rule after it prompted unrest on the reservations in the 1990s. The tribes have fiercely resisted attempts to tax cigarettes as an attack on their sovereignty.
That lack of enforcement has left the courts conflicted about whether merchants are still obligated to collect the tax, and whether they can be prosecuted if they don’t.
Tobacco free policy helpful in Geneseo schools
Our school community has had the opportunity to be part of the New York State Department of Health Tobacco Control Program. As a result of this opportunity, we have been able to bring together school community members to work on enhancing and sustaining a healthy, tobacco free school environment for all members of our school community.
Key components of the work include policy review and revision as well as the communication and implementation of the tobacco free policy. Our school community is benefiting from this work as we bring our tobacco free policy to life. It would be very beneficial for this kind of support to continue in the future.
Michigan hookah fanciers fume about smoking ban
The main thoroughfares of this Detroit suburb, like those of many Michigan cities, aren’t as busy as they used to be. Thousands of jobs shed locally by the Ford Motor Co. have forced smaller businesses to shutter and left fewer customers for those that remain.
Yet there is one bright spot _ a bustling stretch of Warren Avenue where Mideastern-style cafes, markets and shops provide a taste of Beirut or Damascus for one of the largest Arab-American communities in the U.S.
This scene is now clouded by a new state law that bans a popular feature of the local eateries _ the hookah, or Arabic water pipe filled with flavored tobacco.
Come May 1, when the law goes into effect, Dearborn’s cafes will have to choose between serving food or allowing smoking. Hookahs will be welcome only in specialty tobacco stores.
Tough tobacco restrictions have been imposed in many states in recent years, threatening some smoky nightspots but usually leaving the local social life unchanged.
But in perhaps no other city does the aroma of fragrant smoke, the bubbling of water pipes and the tang of Arab dishes blend so intrinsically with the local lifestyle and economy.
In a relatively small business district, more than two dozen cafes offer hookah. “You go down on a summer night, you see people outside and smoking and talking and eating hummus _ it’s a very unique type of picture,” said Warren David, a marketing expert who works with Arab-American businesses.
He and others wonder how this vestige of the old country will accommodate the arrival of modern public health standards. Some local Arab community organizations have been preaching about the hazards of secondhand smoke but also mourn the social impact.
“In our culture, alcohol is forbidden, and this is an area where there are a lot of Muslims,” said Latifeh Sabbagh, a social worker and officer with the local Young Muslim Association. Smoking hookah “is something for them to do. It’s their winding down.”
Hookah smoking came to area with the first waves of Mideastern immigrants in the early 1900s. But the cafe scene here really took off in recent years as Arab-Americans became a full third of Dearborn’s population of 100,000. The city also has a huge mosque and an Arab-American cultural museum.
In Detroit, Warren Avenue is rife with vacant storefronts and empty lots. But as the thoroughfare enters Dearborn, the streetlife brightens with large Arabic-language signs, strolling people and the chatter of different dialects.
In the cafes, the smokers choose from as many as 30 or 40 tobaccos in a variety of flavors, such as coconut, mint, cinnamon and even cafe latte. The blend is heated in the hookah pipe, drawn through a cooling bowl of water, and inhaled through a hose.
Often, older men smoke hookah during the day while younger people come in at night. They talk, smoke and enjoy plates of Mideastern food. Some customers say that smoking in a tobacco shop wouldn’t be the same.
“Today, we were just driving through the area and I thought, ‘Hey, I want to get a smoke in, and we can get (food) while we’re at it,’” said 28-year-old Timur Nersesov as he enjoyed a plate of hummus, an Orange Crush and a hookah filled with rose and mint tobacco at Arabica Bistro.
Mike Berry, owner of the 360 Lounge and Grill, says he can’t decide whether to keep his hookahs or his food service. Hookah, which generally costs $10 to $15 a bowl, represents about 60 percent of his business; food is 40 percent. If he lost either, “I’m shutting down,” he said.
He and Akram Allos, a tobacco and hookah wholesaler who owns Sinbad’s Cafe, are gathering petition signatures to protest the new law.
But Joe Loush, the owner of Arabica who emigrated from Lebanon in 1977, has opened a smoke-only shop next door to his restaurant. He said the hookah scene may be another old world tradition that surrenders to modern American culture. In the Arab-American business community, he said, “always, always, we (react) after the bill passes, which is too late.”
Ontario needs stiffer penalties for illegal tobacco: doctors
The provincial government must put in place stiffer penalties for the illegal manufacturing of contraband cigarettes and help implement a national program to help smokers quit if it wants to curb rising rates of tobacco use, according to a report Tuesday by the Ontario Medical Association.
“The battle against tobacco is far from over,” said Dr. Suzanne Stratsberg, president of the OMA at a news conference. “It is clear that we are going to have to redouble our efforts if we are going to have any chance at winning this fight.”
The report - titled Tobacco, Illness, and the Physician’s Perspective - and published in this month’s Ontario Medical Review, says smoking costs Ontario’s health-care system $1.6-billion a year.
It also accounts for 85% of lung cancers and 30% of cancer deaths. Every year, 13,000 people in Ontario alone die from smoking-related causes. Smoking is also a contributing factor in 80% to 90% of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
According to the report, there are 2.3 million smokers in Ontario, up from 2.1 million smokers in the mid-1960s.
Despite the fact that smoking rates have dropped, with only 20% of residents in the province identifying themselves as smokers -down from 50% 50 years ago - it is still an “ongoing health crisis” that governments need to pay attention to, the OMA says.
“The No. 1 thing is that we have got to do something about contraband cigarettes,” said Dr. Ted Broadway, former executive director of health policy at the OMA. “If we don’t, we’re just flailing in the wind.”
No national statistics were available, but the OMA said they were expected to be similar to the Ontario data.
The report also found that one in five cigarettes smoked in Ontario last year were contraband. Dr. Broadway said the availability of cheap cigarettes is also contributing to high rates of tobacco use among youth.
It also called for more awareness campaigns for smoking cessation programs, including funding for counselling and nicotine-based medication. The association also said that smokers who want to kick their addiction do not realize that it may take up to five attempts before they find success.
Other proposals in the report call for reducing the number of locations that sell tobacco products. Currently, a consumer can purchase cigarettes at approximately 16,000 locations in the province. It also recommends placing a moratorium on emerging new smoking products, particularly flavoured cigarillos that target youth.
“The tobacco industry has always focused on children, always knew that they had to get students to initiate,” said Dr. Broadway. “If I can get you to be 25 without smoking, you’re not going to smoke. If I can get you when you’re 14, I’m going to have you forever.”
The report will be presented to the Ontario government.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said Tuesday he looks forward to hearing the recommendations.
“There is supply and there is demand,” he said. “We must do as much as we can to prevent our kids from taking up smoking and we got to choke off that demand. That’s the important thing.”
Mr. McGuinty said the government has made a number of inroads to curb smoking rates in the past, including limiting smoking in public places. “I think we have come a long way in terms of the progress that we have made,” he said. “We have in fact, reduced the number of places where you can buy your cigarettes and we have also made them less prominent, in terms of advertising, that appears in convenience stores for example, and I think we have made some real progress there.”
Something unpleasant to chew on
Nick Leyva remembers the day he gave up chewing tobacco. Just quit, cold turkey, and never looked back. It was during spring training in 1996. The Toronto Blue Jays were in Dunedin, Fla., when a guest speaker paid a visit to the clubhouse.
His name was Bill Tuttle. He was a former big leaguer. He had been chewing tobacco for some 40 years — a habit he picked up playing baseball. Tuttle loved the stuff and wished he could have been chewing some right there and then if cancer had not chewed away his face.
“I looked at his face and I said that is the last time I put chewing tobacco in my mouth,” says Leyva, the Jays bench coach. “It was eating him away. Half his mouth was missing, just from the [cancer] surgeries. My first two managers in pro baseball both died from chewing tobacco, from mouth cancer and throat cancer.”
A ballplayer with a bulging, tobacco-stuffed cheek is an iconic image, as American as America’s pastime, and as much a part of baseball lore as the white chalk lines and the smell of freshly mown grass on a warm summer’s day.
Back in the early days, players chewed tobacco for the same reason farmers did: to keep their mouths moist on dry dusty fields. The game’s first spitballs were slathered in tobacco-coloured slobber. When the first leather gloves appeared on the scene in the 1870s, players tenderized the rawhide by spitting tobacco juice into the palm. Chewing tobacco has been baseball’s nasty habit of choice for over 150 years.
But it is an association the United States Congress would like to end. At a hearing in Washington earlier this week, Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California, called on baseball to ban big league players from dipping, chewing or otherwise using smokeless tobacco products during games.
“We don’t let baseball players go stand out there in the field and drink beer,” Waxman said. “Why should they be out there on the field–in sight off all their fans on television and at the ballpark — using tobacco?”
It is a good question. Leyva remembers popping his first tobacco plug into his mouth while playing college ball. He had three hits that day and decided to keep chewing and then he got hooked. Leyva is in favour of curbing smokeless tobacco use among players, although he understands that chew is ingrained in the game’s culture.
Tony Pena, a relief pitcher with the Chicago White Sox, had a tin of Copenhagen dip was resting on a shelf, next to an orange and a bag of peanuts in the visitor’s clubhouse at Rogers Centre. Pena is Dominican. He had never tried chewing until he landed in Montana eight years ago.
“An American player give it to me,” Pena said. “The first time was in Missoula, Mont. It was like, like, crazy. It was like being drunk when first I do it. But after that it feel good. I love it.”
Chewing tobacco was a civics lesson for Pena. Here was a kid from the Dominican learning what American ballplayers do. Gavin Floyd, another Chicago pitcher, chewed every now and again in high school before taking it up in the big leagues.”You got all the time in the world on your hands when you are a starting pitcher,” Floyd says. “You can only chew so many seeds and gum.”
Floyd chewed for two years before quitting. It just was not him, he says. That, and he felt like something he had started to keep the boredom at bay had become a full-blown addiction.
“I gave it up last year,” Floyd says. “It takes control of you –almost like you need it.”
Even though he quit, and the smell of the stuff makes him feel sick, Floyd would never ask another player to stop chewing. It is an individual choice and, he says, a “role model” should not have to be a “robot” and conform to some idealized tobacco-free image to be a good role model.
Some studies indicate that as many as one third of today’s big leaguers use smokeless tobacco products. Some members of Congress had trouble understanding why.
“Why don’t they just chew gum, if they feel the need to chew something?” California Congresswoman Anna Eshoo wondered during the hearings.
“Maybe, with chewing tobacco, it is just something we want to associate with green grass,” Leyva says with a shrug. “And baseball.”
DFS renews key liquor and tobacco contract at Singapore Changi Airport
DFS Singapore announced today that it has secured a three-year renewal on its contract to operate the liquor and tobacco concession at Singapore Changi Airport.
With its existing lease expiring in January 2011, the group had been in negotiations with Changi Airport Group (CAG) for the renewal of its tenancy.
With the renewal of this contract, DFS will continue to operate Changi Airport’s liquor and tobacco concession for another three years, up to January 2014.
Currently, DFS manages and operates all the liquor and tobacco stores located across Changi Airport’s main terminals and Budget Terminal.DFS President, Worldwide Store Operations Michael Schriver said: “The securing of this contract at one of DFS’ pivotal retail locations in Asia reinforces our presence as one of the leading travel retail players in the region.
“We are extremely pleased with the professional manner in which the negotiations were carried out - with open and constructive dialogue - and we are delighted to have reached mutually agreed terms with CAG that would align and strengthen both our interests in growing the business.”
Schriver added: “Changi is truly a jewel in the crown of DFS airport operations worldwide. It has always been a centerpiece for us to introduce new concepts and we intend to continue to introduce exceptional products, undertake innovative promotions, and develop our staff to very highest service levels over the next three years.
“Our goal is to continually improve the customer’s experience at Changi, generating increasing sales for CAG and also raising the bar for the already glowing reputation of this remarkably successful airport.
“DFS has been a partner of Changi Airport since the opening of Terminal 1 in 1981, and even prior to this, was the sole liquor and tobacco operator at Paya Lebar Airport from 1978-1981.
“Throughout its history, DFS has continued to innovate, and this new extension period will be no different. One area of focus for us will be to improve the speed of transaction at the check out, in turn raising our level of customer service.
“We are delighted for our 372 loyal staff in the liquor and tobacco stores that we are now able to announce this extension,” Schriver concluded.
Changi Airport Group Executive Vice President of Commercial Lim Peck Hoon said: “CAG values the long-standing relationships it has with its partners. Today, we are very pleased that our long-term partnership with DFS will continue and in fact, be further strengthened with this contract renewal.
“Liquor and tobacco is a key component of Changi’s duty free sales and overall retail offering. Given DFS’s strong track record, we are confident in its ability to grow this business segment at Changi and to contribute to our overall goal of creating an exceptional airport experience for all visitors.
“We look forward to working closely with DFS to develop the liquor and tobacco offering, as well as other retail categories at Changi Airport.”
City to apply for energy project funds
Martinsville City Council will apply for a $333,333 grant to use toward an energy project the city is developing.
In a unanimous vote, the council on Tuesday adopted a resolution to seek the funds through the Reserve Fund Grant Program of the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission.
The city is developing a project to collect methane produced by decaying garbage at its former landfill off Clearview Drive and turn it into electricity. The Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy provided the city a Biomass Energy Grant of $1 million to put toward the project.
That grant made the city eligible to apply for the tobacco commission grant. If it gets the latter grant, the city will use it as the required local match for the other grant, according to Public Works Director Leon Towarnicki.
Martinsville is spending about $14 million annually to buy wholesale power on the open market and through American Municipal Power, an Ohio-based organization in which the city is a member and part owner. That electricity then is sold to customers of the city’s electric department.
Towarnicki has estimated that the system being installed at the landfill will allow the city to produce enough electricity to meet 3 percent to 4 percent of its needs. That should save about $500,000 yearly, he told the council.
Also Tuesday, the council gave its initial approval to an ordinance allowing the abandonment of an alley in the 400 block of Starling Avenue.
The abandonment will enable former Martinsville mayor Dr. Mark Crabtree to expand his dental practice. Crabtree owns property on both sides of the alley, which is being used as a parking lot.
Wayne Knox, the city’s director of community development, said there still will be ample parking after the dental office is expanded.
No opposition to the abandonment was voiced during a public hearing.
Nobody spoke during a public hearing to receive comments on the city’s past use of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds.
The hearing was required as part of the city’s plans to seek a $750,000 block grant through the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development for use in revitalizing the uptown business district.
Funds would be used to improve the appearance of buildings on Fayette Street, improve lighting and landscaping on the street, enhance the courthouse square and improve the beginning of the uptown walking trail and the New College Institute parking lot on Franklin Street, officials have said.
The city plans to apply for the grant this month.
Block grant funds have been used toward at least seven other improvement projects in Martinsville during the past 10 to 15 years, and state officials are pleased with how the city has spent the funds, Knox said.
The city is planning a CDBG project along Dillard and Franklin streets, Warren Court and part of Liberty Street in the Northside area. Knox said plans are to apply for funds for that project next March.
Another block grant project is being considered for the area surrounding the former Paradise Inn near Second and Fayette streets, he said.
Tuesday’s council meeting was a “Neighborhood Community Meeting” held at McCabe Memorial Baptist Church on Clearview Drive. Its purpose basically was to give residents of the Northside and Chatham Heights areas who may have trouble attending council meetings at the municipal building uptown a chance to talk with council members and participate in local government.
Other than city officials, about 15 people attended. Only two formally spoke from the floor.
One was Douglas Sharp of Clearview Drive. He commended public works crews for their efforts to clear streets of snow and ice after recent winter storms, as well as police for their efforts in catching speeders.
The other speaker was John Duggins, who identified himself as an energy auditor working in the area. He encouraged people to have energy audits performed at their homes so they can learn what improvements, such as insulation and weatherization, are needed to help them save money on heating and cooling bills.
Duggins said that starting in 2013, homes will be required to have such audits at least once every seven years before they can be sold.
City Fire Marshal/Building Official Ted Anderson said based on the council’s tour of Northside and Chatham Heights on Monday that “people seem to be doing a lot better job now” of keeping their properties clean. Few property maintenance code violations were observed.
City Manager Clarence Monday mentioned that due to an expected budget shortfall of more than $2 million in the new fiscal year that will start July 1, “we’re not going to be able to fund everything” that people want funded.
Officials are preparing the city’s fiscal 2011 budget proposal. As part of the process, Monday encouraged residents to fill out a survey on the city’s Web site asking what they consider to be priorities for funding.
Copies of the survey will be mailed to residents along with upcoming utility bills, he said.
Changing role of tobacco in North Carolina topic of March 18 lecture
BOONE—North Carolina’s changing tobacco economy will be the focus of a March 18 lecture at Appalachian State University.
Dr. Peter B. Benson, an assistant professor of sociocultural anthropology at Washington University, will discuss “Growers, Migrant Farm Workers, and the Changing Face of Big Tobacco in North Carolina.” His talk begins at 7 p.m. in room 114 Belk Library and Information Commons. The public is welcome.
Benson’s talk explores the major changes that have occurred in North Carolina’s tobacco economy, drawing on rich ethnographic field study on tobacco farms around the state. The transformation of tobacco communities in the state speaks to larger themes and broader social patterns in the United States, including Mexican labor migration and changes in work life resulting from economic globalization.
While reflecting on what tobacco farmers say about the health aspects of their livelihoods, Benson’s talk will also address the tobacco industry’s role in shaping regional politics and contributing to major transformations in North Carolina agriculture and social life.
Benson’s research interests include medical anthropology, public health, political economy, tobacco, agriculture, transnational migration and social theory, especially intersections between phenomenology, existentialism, and cultural anthropology.
His new book (Princeton University Press, forthcoming) covers the tobacco industry, seen from the perspective of rural North Carolina, where he has conducted field research with tobacco farmers and farmworkers including Mexican and Central American migrants for the past four years.
The lecture is sponsored by the Department of Anthropology and the Center for Appalachian Studies, with the assistance of an External Scholars Grant awarded by the University Forum Committee. Additional support was provided by Appalachian’s Global Studies Program, Sustainable Development Program, Center for Economic Research and Policy Analysis, Department of Economics, Department of Economics and the Department of Health, Leisure and Exercise Science.
Three arrested in cigarette theft
Three people were arrested early Monday, Feb. 8, accused of stealing cigarettes from a gas station, according to a news release from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
Lindsey R. Adams, 23, of 10431 Chenoweth Road, South Charleston, was arrested on a charge of theft; Christopher A. Dean, 25, of 1715 Tibbetts Ave., was arrested on a charge of complicity to theft; and Shawn Q. Adams, 28, of 10431 Chenoweth Road, South Charleston, was arrested on a charge of complicity to theft, according to the report.
The three went to a gas station and convenience store in the 3800 block of East National Road around 11 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 7, according to the report.
While the clerk was distracted, Adams went behind the counter and took some cartons of cigarettes, according to the report.
The three fled and were taken into custody when they returned to the same gas station around 4 a.m. Monday, according to the report.
All three were taken to the Clark County Jail.
Governor Signs Tobacco Tax into Law
Governor Felix Camacho officially signed bill 150 or the tobacco tax law into effect this morning. In about 60 days from now cigarettes will be taxed at $15 dollars per 100 sticks. That comes out to about an additional three dollars per pack of cigarettes.
Cigars will be taxed at .40 cents per mini cigar, .44 cents per regular sized cigar, and .50 cents per large cigar. Chewing tobacco will also cost an additional dollar per can.
Vice-Speaker BJ Cruz was the author of this legislation.He says that he knew it would make people upset but it was a piece of legislation that he had to push through when he heard that there is one diagnosis of lung cancer per week on Guam.
“This is a very important piece of legislation because it greatly supports with our attempt to discourage tobacco usage in our community,” said Governor Camacho. “Lt. Governor Cruz and I pledge to continue supporting all efforts that provide for a healthier quality of life for our people.”
“I want to commend Governor Camacho and members of the Legislature for ensuring that this became law,” said Lt. Governor Cruz. “This will help us decrease tobacco usage among our people, but more importantly, it will reduce the number of tobacco-related health issues we would otherwise have to address in the future.”
According to PL 30-80, a significant amount of revenue generated from the tax increase will be deposited into the newly created Guam Cancer Trust Fund to be used by programs that support cancer screenings, treatment, and support services.
Additionally, tax revenues will go to GMH, DPHSS, and DMHSA to support disease prevention programs and address future healthcare demands associated with tobacco use.
