Jeff Chopan

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Over the years, Eric Garner had sold Supreme the untaxed cigarettes known as “loosies” because they are pulled loose from the pack. This underground trade, ironically, had been fueled by Mayor Bloomberg’s antismoking campaign, which raised the minimum price of a pack of cigarettes to $10.50. Few of Supreme’s peers could pay that much to smoke, so they began buying individual cigarettes, smuggled from Virginia. This had given Garner, the father of five children and two stepchildren, his livelihood. On a noisy stretch of Staten Island’s North Shore, Supreme would pay Garner a dollar for two ...more
Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City
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