NEW YORK CITY – Tobacco companies are taking Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York City Council to task, the New York Daily News reports. Facebook ads proclaim that “raising taxes and implementing a ban on the display of tobacco products is a bad idea.”

Sponsored by R.J. Reynolds, the ads and website, www.transformtobacco.com, are fighting Bloomberg’s anti-smoking measures before the Council, including one that would prohibit retailers from having tobacco products on display, implement a minimum price of $10.50 per cigarette pack, add penalties for retailers who sell contraband cigarettes, and jack up the smoking age to 21. 

The site contends that “retail and wholesale employees’ safety could be in jeopardy” because “a truckload of cigarettes could be worth up to $2 million. And a tobacco tax increase means that cigarettes will become even more valuable, making cigarette theft and burglary more common at every stage of distribution. From convenience store robberies to warehouse break-ins to truck hijackings, cigarette crime is expected to increase — putting the men and women who work with cigarettes in danger on the job.” 

Transform Tobacco expressed concern on its website that “higher cigarette taxes increase gang-related and other organized crime. An increase in tobacco taxes will escalate an already thriving underground market, making it more lucrative for gangs and other organized crime outfits to steal, smuggle and funnel black-market cigarettes to consumers. In fact, the higher the tax increase, the more lucrative the illicit profits made by criminals and the less legal profit made by retailers and wholesalers. Illegal sales also cut into revenue projections by state governments.”