POCOMOKE CITY, MD - Smokers and convenience owners in Pocomoke City are steaming mad about a proposed hike to cigarette taxes in Maryland.
As you drive just a few miles down Route 13, two large convenience store are perched just over the state line in Virginia. What do their ads scream? Cheap cigarettes.
Maryland license plates are a common sight at these stores, avoiding the high cigarette prices in the Old Like State, driven in part by high taxes.
"Oh man, they're too high up here," said Terrance Corbin of Pocomoke City. "I can go get a pack of - two packs for the price of one pack here. The prices are ridiculous."
As of March 2024, the tax on a pack of cigarettes in Maryland was $3.75. In Virginia it's only 60 cents.
Maryland House Bill 1073 (HB 1073) is proposing to increase that tax to $4.50 per 20-cigarette pack, and to $0.225 per cigarette for larger packs and cartons.
Convenience store owners in Pocomoke City say they got slammed the last time the cigarette tax was raised in 2021.
"Sales almost went down fifty percent," said Mohammed Khan, owner of Mitchell's Market, just five miles from the Virginia state line.
For convenience stores like Mitchell's Market, lost cigarette sales mean lost sales throughout the store.
"They buy a lot of stuff like beer, or like snacks, or juice, or sodas, a lot of stuff they buy," said Qasim Shahbaz, manager at Mitchell's Market.
Melvin Wise of Pocomoke City already takes his business to Virginia.
"I may purchase a drink, or water, or a soda or a sandwich or something," Wise said. "I can get all that right up in Virginia."
Khan and Shahbaz hope Annapolis considers border towns like Pocomoke City in future readings of the tax hike bill.
"That government policy is supposed to think about small business owners too, how we're going to survive, how small business owners going to survive," Khan said.
HB 1073, and a partner bill, HB 1072, a proposed hike to alcohol taxes, have two more readings before going to the Maryland State Senate.
If passed by the General Assembly and the Governor, the tax hike would go into effect on July 1, 2024.