Philip Morris USA sues another retailer in NY

Philip Morris USA, the nation's biggest cigarette seller, said Friday it has sued another New York retailer, accusing it of selling counterfeit Marlboro cigarettes.
The latest lawsuit is against G.J. Smokes in Mastic, a town on New York's Long Island.
The company has sued 27 retail outlets in New York and New Jersey since May 2009 in an effort to stop the sales of counterfeit smokes. The counterfeits often are sold without payment of excise taxes, the company said.
The company has said the New York area is prone to counterfeit sales because of the combination of high federal, state and local taxes. In the past few years, higher taxes have boosted black market cigarette sales.
Philip Morris USA said employees of G.J. Smokes bought cartons of counterfeit cigarettes that bore the Marlboro brand name. The tobacco company has sued four other cigarette shops in Mastic.
Philip Morris USA is owned by Altria Group Inc., which is based in Richmond, Va.

Cigarette price hike planned

Cigarette producer Austria-Tabak is to hike its prices next month, according to newspaper reports.
Half of the company’s cigarettes will become more expensive as of 1 February, according to today’s (Tues) Kurier.
An Austria-Tabak spokesman said: "We have not raised prices in two years."
He added higher production, energy and raw tobacco costs were behind the planned price increase.
The newspaper predicted that other cigarette producers will probably also raise the prices of their products.
Meanwhile, Vienna coffee shops are demanding more time in which to carry out reconstruction of their premises to comply with legislation on smoking, according to the People’s Party’s (ÖVP) Business Association, which polled 2,000 coffee shop owners.
Association chief Berndt Querfeld said today that 51 per cent of coffee house proprietors feared they would go out of business if the law was not changed and 62 per cent said they had not yet carried out reconstruction.
He said small establishments would have the most trouble in arranging for smoking and non-smoking areas as called for by the law. If they could not, he explained, they would automatically become non-smoking establishments.

Number of illegal cigarettes seized down 37% last year

The number of duty unpaid cigarettes seized last year was 37 per cent lower compared to the figures in 2008. According to the Singapore Customs, this was the largest drop in five years.
2.9 million packets of duty unpaid cigarettes were confiscated by the Singapore Customs last year, down from 4.6 million in 2008. 
Similarly, the number of people caught peddling or buying illegal cigarettes was about 2.5 per cent lower in 2009 than the year before. 
Singapore Customs said this could be due to the SDPC or "Singapore Duty-Paid Cigarette" printed on every single legal cigarette.
Fong Yong Kian, director-general, Singapore Customs, said: "Our SDPC markings, which kicked in in January, have been quite successful. It makes it easier for our officers to detect contraband cigarettes. 
"At the same time, the markings serve as a very strong psychological reminder to smokers that should you light up a cigarette without a marking, people who walk past will know that it is a contraband."
More smokers are going for the legal stuff - last year, S$861 million was collected in duties, a 13 per cent increase from 2008.
According to the Singapore Customs, the syndicates are using more elaborate methods to bring in contraband cigarettes. For instance, instead of using big container trucks, the smugglers are bringing in the loot via smaller packages that have been carefully concealed, such as by hiding the cigarettes within concrete slabs or within plastic film rolls. 
The enforcement results also showed that 14 motor traders were prosecuted for under-declaring the values of imported vehicles, a five-fold increase from the year before.
And the number of people busted for tampering with their fuel gauges rose from four in 2008 to 24 last year.