Last Thursday at a City Hall news conference, officials displayed drug paraphernalia, untaxed cigarettes and other contraband they already had seized.
Although the group started [image-nocss] at markets that drew complaints, it plans to eventually inspect each one of the city's hundreds of c-stores, Deputy City Attorney Cynthia B. Hall said. Officials hope Thursday's news conference will entice stores to comply with the law before inspectors arrive at their door. "One of the things we kept hearing from them is that everyone is doing it," Hall said.
"We can't have convenience stores enabling the drug trade in our communities," she added. "We're hoping that everyone will now do the right thing."
The task force found pipes for smoking crack disguised as "love roses," miniature roses inside glass containers (Cumberland Farms has joined a new anti-drug initiative in Torrington, Conn.;click here for CSP Daily News coverage).
Hall said drug users would dispose of the roses, then make use of small bits of metal kitchen scrubbers passed out by convenience store employees as filters to smoke drugs. Scales for weighing drugs were disguised as cell phones and MP3 players. Fake cigarettes turned out to be vials used to hide cocaine or raw heroin, said the report.
"We would ask the owners what these devices were used for, and they would say, 'You know what they're used for'," Hall said. "They couldn't articulate a legitimate use."
Officials said the operator of the Azalea Market said she had no idea how drug paraphernalia, bootlegged DVDs and other counterfeit items got into her store. The operator of Anyhow Discounts said he was providing a service to the community after being cited for selling pain pills and Viagra without prescriptions, officials said.
Hall said most drug paraphernalia was usually sold from underneath counters.
The task force also found cigarettes with Chesapeake and Suffolk tax stamps, the newspaper reported. Mostly, Norfolk tax stamps were forged or were nonexistent, Hall said.
Commissioner of Revenue Sharon McDonald, whose office oversees tax collections, told the paper that the city has seen a 34% decrease in cigarette tax stamp sales this year, or a loss of about $750,000 annually. The decline follows years of steady increases in tax stamp receipts, said the report.
McDonald said cigarettes sold illegally are responsible for most or all of that loss. The city tax is 65 cents for a box of 20 cigarettes. "Our job is to make sure that everyone pays their fair share," she said. "And that's not happening."
Two of the inspected stores were closed temporarily afterward, the report said. The Health Department closed Three Star Food Convenience for health code violations. Fire marshals closed My Neighbor's Deli for numerous code violations. Both have since reopened, said the Pilot.
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