Smokers on Long Island smoldered at the cash register Tuesday as they paid about $7 for a pack of premium cigarettes in the state that now has the country’s highest cigarette taxes.

The average price of each pack statewide, which had been $5.82, rose 21 percent with the $1.25 tax hike. In New York City, which adds its own tax, a pack of Marlboros or Camels costs more than $10 in some stores.

Smokers said they felt singed by the increase, which brings the state tax to $2.75 per pack. That compares to $2.58 in New Jersey, the state with the second-highest tax. At $2, Connecticut ranks fifth, and Pennsylvania’s $1.35 ranks 20th. (South Carolina, the lowest, charges 7 cents.)

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PENNSYLVANIA — New York smokers are buying lots of cigarettes in Pennsylvania.

“I actually make trips down here once a week or so,” said Savona resident Tim Soporowski.

“I always buy my cigarettes in Pennsylvania. Simply because it is a little cheaper,” said Big Flats resident Dave Kenyon.

Now it’s a lot cheaper, since a new tax raised the price of a pack in New York by $1.25 to some $5, $6 and even $7 a pack.

“It’s crazy,” Soporowski said.

“We don’t like it,” said Phyllis Gurnsey, a Campbell resident.

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METROPOLIS, Ill. —  Illinois’ adopted home of Superman considers cigarettes an enemy, and it’s ready to pay a handsome reward to any city employee who can vanquish their smoking habit.

The southern Illinois tourist trap said it will pay city workers $1,000 apiece if they can stay off smokes for a year.

Mayor Billy McDaniel said the city has been looking for a way to get its employees off cigarettes for good. So far, McDaniel said, 15 people have signed up for the program that began Monday.

The plan calls for random nicotine tests to identify cheaters. Nicotine patches and gum will not affect those tests.

McDaniel hopes the program leads to healthier employees, lower insurance premiums and lower labor costs.

While some New Yorkers have vowed to quit smoking now that a pack of cigarettes soared past $8, others said fughedaboutit.

Sherrilyn Griffith, of the Upper East Side, had one last cigarette in the pack in her pocket Monday, a smoke she vowed would be her last as the higher state tax kicks in today. She never thought about quitting before, but the new tax cemented her decision.

“That’s why I’m quitting,” said Griffith, a 23-year-old mother of two who spends $50 to $60 a week on cigarettes. “$8 a pack is really too much.”

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NEW YORK STATE — The next three to six months will be critical for mom-and-pop convenience stores dealing with higher cigarette taxes and slumping sales.

Starting Tuesday, the cost of a pack of cigarettes will jump $1.25 because the state tax is increasing from $1.50 per pack to $2.75 per pack.

“The timing is as bad as it can possibly be,” James Calvin, president of the New York Association of Convenience Stores, said Friday.

People who smoke and don’t quit to protest the higher taxes will find cheaper sources for their cigarettes, including Indian reservations and border states with significantly lower taxes, he said.

“The primary concern all along for us has been the reservation tax evasion and how that is going to dramatically affect sales in convenience stores,” Calvin said.

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TRENTON - Starting Sunday, cigarettes that don’t self-extinguish when no one puffs on them will not be sold in New Jersey, the state Department of Community Affairs announced Friday.

The new rule is part of a fire-safety law passed by the Legislature and signed into law in May 2007.

Improper use of smoking material caused 204 house fires in New Jersey in 2006 and accounted for 14 percent of all civilian fire fatalities, according to the DCA Division of Fire Safety.

The new cigarettes will put themselves out if no one takes a puff, thus reducing the risk of fires caused when a smoker falls asleep with the tobacco still lit, said DCA Commissioner Joseph Doria.

The vast majority of people believe the price of cigarettes should be increased in a bid to reduce the numbers smoking, according to a survey.

International experts at a conference on tobacco control in Dublin were told taxes should be raised further to make the cost of the habit a major turn-off.

And one of the country’s leading anti-smoking campaigners Professor Luke Clancy called on the Government to hike prices by at least 50 cent every year. “Raising tobacco prices, removing tobacco signage from retail outlets, removing tobacco from our consumer price index and massively increasing the spend on educating our young people on the risks of tobacco use are all proven measures to combat smoking,” he said.

Hoping to curb smoking among teenagers and prevent a lifetime of nicotine dependence, Baltimore officials are proposing a citywide ban on the sale of individual small cigars, sometimes called “blunts” or “loosies,” in neighborhood shops.

If the public health proposal becomes law, Baltimore could be the first municipality in the country to attempt to improve residents’ overall health by limiting their access to the potentially cancer-causing cigars.

“Hopefully, we can look back and know that we protected young people from ever wanting to smoke,” said Mayor Sheila Dixon, who attended a news conference at City Hall yesterday to announce the proposal. The ban could be enacted relatively quickly by the Health Department, which has regulatory authority to protect citizens’ health and safety.

The cigars, which have been popularized by hip-hop stars, pack more tobacco than a cigarette and come in flavors such as cherry and grape that appeal to a young crowd. It is this dangerous mingling of status symbol, sweet taste and high tobacco content that has city officials worried.

GRAND RAPIDS — Days after a West Side Grand Rapids man died from a cigarette-ignited fire, a local legislator is pushing a law to mandate fire-safe cigarettes in Michigan.

“There’s technology in place presently that can dramatically reduce these types of tragedies from occurring, and we want to ensure that these types of cigarettes are distributed in the state of Michigan,” said state Rep. Michael Sak.

On Saturday, 84-year-old Rufus Parker died in an apartment fire caused by a cigarette.

Fire-safe cigarettes are equipped with two or three bands of less-porous paper, otherwise known as “speed bumps,” which slow down a burning cigarette. A cigarette left unattended will extinguish when the embers reaches a speed bump.

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ALBANY — New York State Department of Taxation and Finance Commissioner Robert L. Megna has announced that six people were recently arrested in three separate cases for possessing 315 cartons of illegal cigarettes purchased from local smoke shops in Salamanca and Irving.

In the first case, Eugene Cabral, 45, of 20 Yeaton Street, Coventry, RI, and John Gelsomino, 46, of 510 Davisville Road, North Kingston, RI, were arrested in Cattaraugus County on May 11 and found to be in possession of 123 cartons of unstamped cigarettes and $8,779 in cash.

They were arrested after Salamanca Police stopped Cabral for speeding and a large quantity of cigarettes were seen in the rear of the vehicle. Tax Department investigators were called and determined that the unstamped cigarettes were purchased from an Indian reservation smoke shop in Irving.

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