With cigarette prices up and the number of smoke-friendly places down, the black market for single cigarettes, or “loosies,” is thriving on the streets of New York.

“We started selling 10 times as much,” said Lonnie Warner, 50, a black market seller also known as Lonnie Loosie. With his partners, he patrols the east side of Eighth Avenue, from 35th to 36th Street.

A $1.60 rise in the state tax in July raised the price of a pack of cigarettes to $12.50 ? more than most people are willing to pay, said Mr. Warner.

He said he bought his cigarettes, mostly Newports, for a bit over $50 a carton from smugglers who get them in states where the state tax is well under a dollar a pack. He then resells them for 75 cents each, two for $1 or $8 for a pack ($7 for friends).

Mr. Warner said he and each of his two partners took home $120 to $150 a day, profit made from selling about 2,000 Newport cigarettes, mostly two at a time. Each transaction is a criminal offense.

In the four years since he began selling cigarettes, Mr. Warner, whose style of salesmanship is hardly furtive, recalls being arrested 15 times . Punishment usually means a few days in jail on Rikers Island, or a week of community service.

In his time, Mr. Warner has learned a lot about smokers’ habits. He sometimes hears from customers who explain to him they are quitting as they buy two final loosies.

“A lot of them believe they are quitting,” he said, “but they come back every day.”

For the moment, business is good enough that Mr. Warner said he intended to buy health insurance for the first time. He currently
relies on his periodic stays on Rikers Island - an occupational hazard - for medical attention. “When they screen me, I ask for all the blood tests,” he said. Mr. Warner knows few customers by name, but dozens by face. He often tells female customers that they are too pretty to smoke, just before completing the sale.

When he is on the move, as he often is, Mr. Warner walks exceptionally fast. Covering tremendous stretches of sidewalk each day keeps him fit.

Mr. Warner carries only one or two cartons of cigarettes in his backpack, because that is the most he cares to lose should he be arrested. So each time he and his two partners run out, Mr. Warner takes the train up to Harlem, or walks a few blocks east to meet one of his half-dozen suppliers, mostly immigrants from West Africa.

At the end of the day, Mr. Warner returns to Harlem, where he often stays with his girlfriend. But even in bed, he is unable to put his day entirely behind him. His girlfriend sometimes complains, he said, that he mutters the word “Newports” again and again in his sleep.


By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN