Cigarette Tubes
Cigarette Tubes
Island Smokes Brings New Yorkers the $3 Pack of Smokes…but for How Long? (thepoliticker.observer)
Illo: Chris Gash
Around the middle of the summer, brightly colored fliers started appearing on
the Lower East Side, strewn across coffee shop counters and discarded on
curbs. “Island Smokes,” they said. “A healthier, less expensive alternative to
smoking. Amazing!!!” There was a cartoon palm tree swaying on some exotic
atoll to drive the point home, but more intriguing was the word “discount.”
And then the details: this wasn’t really so much an alternative to smoking as
a way to do it cheaper. Island Smokes went for $29.99 a carton. Three bucks a
pack. Peanuts.
That’s less than what you pay in the south. Less than West Virginia, even. A
price tag to win over any pack-a-day New Yorker. Our heartbeat quickened and
our palms grew hot—as if a pretty girl had walked through the door.
The location, the flier claimed, was at that bustling Chinatown border corner
of Eldridge and Broome (next to Vanessa’s Dumplings, in LES-speak). But surely
this place, such a cost-friendly refuge from Mayor Bloomberg’s war on
cigarettes, was some kind of myth. There had to be a catch. It was too good to
be true.
Turns out is true, but it’s too …