Focus on sustainable industry and commerce

I am constantly perplexed why our local politicians spend so much effort being a “Friend of Coal.” It seems to me that it’s very much like being a “Friend of Tobacco.” Tobacco has been a great industry since the mid 1600’s.
People made a lot of money working in the tobacco industry. People became addicted to its’ use, while dependent on its’ associated jobs. That was great for business.
Then, 350 years later, the day came when we found out it wasn’t so good for us after all. People got sick and started to die from clinging to the habits of old. Our health care system was caught in the aftermath of public subsidized medical expenses.
The Marlboro man quickly drove his cattle out of Dodge City to Europe, where he has been very successful at selling his poison to any one who has two fingers and a pair of lips. And low and behold, the tobacco-backed city, left behind, turned into a dust bowl, leaving vacant houses and no jobs.
When the end was in sight for tobacco, U.S. politicians were suddenly no longer “Friends of Tobacco.” They moved their alliances and efforts to support other sustainable industries for their voters, things like technology empowered by transportation and communication infrastructure. The word “commerce” became synonymous with words like “e-commerce.”
But some old dinosaurs die hard. A few state politicians lobbied hard to financially support the poor tobacco farmer whose industry was under attack by an unsuspecting assailant, the Surgeon General. They convinced the state of Maryland to pay farmers NOT to plant tobacco on a yearly basis?
And those poor helpless farmers ... they took that money to the bank, leaving their empty and idle farm fields to wither year over year. After all, why should they work so hard when the state of Maryland is subsidizing their paycheck?
But the money finally ran out on the great tobacco buyout of the late 1900s. Maryland could no longer afford to pay farmers not to farm. And guess what happened next? The tobacco farmers of yesterday did what any enterprising person would do under the circumstances ... they changed the way they made a living.
I see a parallel between the coal industry and the tobacco industry. They have a strong lobby group who works real hard at keeping our good neighbors addicted to their “not so” high paying jobs.
Their byproducts are bad for our health, the health of their workers, and the environment. They expect subsidies and buyouts like the Coal Tax Credit to artificially support their failing business model.
And when the coal runs out, and it will, Mr. Peabody’s coal train will pull up its tracks as it heads back to Pennsylvania or wherever it came from, leaving Western Maryland with nothing but bad water and a far lagging economy behind.
Here is my challenge to Sen. Edwards and Delegate Beitzel: Think and plan beyond your elected term in office. You are paid to be smart, and not to do what everyone before you has already done just because it is the legacy of the past.
What will you do to pave the way for sustainable future for western Maryland? One thing is for sure, attracting young workers to a dying coal industry is no different than inviting the Marlboro Man to show up for career day at the local high school!

Cigarettes, Alcohol Stolen In Pelham Store Robbery

Cigarettes and alcohol were stolen from a store in Pelham on Friday morning, police said.
Police said the front door of the State Line Market on Bridge Street was smashed, and someone stole a large quantity of cigarettes and alcohol.
This was the fifth store burglary in Pelham in the past six months. Police said it was similar to a burglary earlier in January at the New Hampshire Liquor Store on Bridge Street.
Police said all the burglaries are under investigation.

Puffers fuming over planned ban

Sure, it may be legal, healthy, even inevitable, but to many smokers in South Boston’s Old Colony development, a ban on cigarettes is positively un-American.
“It’s against your rights,” said resident Wayne Pemberton, 58, as he puffed on a Marlboro at the entrance of his building. “I’ve been smoking for a long time and lived here too long. This is America. If I can’t smoke in my house, it’s wrong. This is a free world, I thought.”
The Boston Housing Authority plans to open more than 100 smoke-free public housing units in a rebuilt section of Old Colony slated for completion in 2012, in keeping with a vow by Mayor Thomas M. Menino to have entirely smoke-free public housing by 2014.
But Southie smokers have a message for the mayor: You can pry those cigarettes out of our cold, dead hands.
“I try to quit somewhat for my health,” Matthew Tilton, 21, told the Herald, leaning out of his building’s window after stubbing out a Newport. “But if they force it to, ‘If you’re gonna smoke, you can’t live here,’ then that’s not right.”
Yet, not all smokers were feeling the hate. Some ruefully embrace the ban.
“I’d go for a new unit,” said Veronica Szwanke, 27, of Old Colony where, she said, people chain-smoke in the hallways. “I’d quit if I had to,” the Newport smoker said.
Five-year resident and 13-year smoker Benito Diaz, 56, said he’d welcome the ban, too - for safety and olfactory reasons.
“Some people, they could smoke and fall asleep with the cigarette or something,” Diaz said. “It’s bad, and I don’t like the smell.”
But those concerns mean nothing to those defending what they regard as a fundamental right.
“They’re taking our freedom,” Tilton said. “You should be able to smoke in the house. If I’m paying an arm and a leg (for rent), I expect to smoke.”

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.