High NY taxes result in construction boom...

...in Pennsylvania.

New York's ever-increasing cigarette taxes, the highest in the country, have not provided the revenue windfall our rulers were expecting.  The New York Post reports:

Sales of taxed cigarettes have plummeted 27 percent since July, when state lawmakers raised the excise tax to $4.35 a pack on top of the city's tax of $1.50, making the average price of Marlboros here $11.60, with some shops charging as much as $14.

But every cloud of cigarette smoke has a silver lining.  Tobacco shops on the Pennsylvania side of the NY/PA line are booming as tax-avoiding New York smokers stock up for less.

Where there's smoke there's profit in Westfall and Matamoras, Pa.

In a two-mile strip of Route 6/209, from Westfall to the Port Jervis bridge, there are eight — count 'em, eight — tobacco shops, with two more on the way.

New Yorkers looking to escape that state's $4.35-a-pack cigarette tax cross the Delaware River for Pennsylvania's per-pack cigarette tax of $1.60.

"There's lots of call for it. This is cigarette haven, I guess," said Matamoras Mayor Richard Gassmann. "I wish we had a variety of businesses, but we don't."

Tobacco King, next to the Westfall Fire Department, opened last week, and manager Jimmy Patel is confident the business will do well.

"This is the golden period to make a profit," Patel said. He compared tobacco shops to gas stations. Consumers will go to the one in the neighborhood offering the lowest price, even if the savings are just pennies.

More on the PA construction boom in the Pocono Record.  Previous discussion here.