A new cigarette tax in New York has smokers flocking across the border to Pennsylvania.

On any day it's not hard to find New York license plates in Great Bend Township just a few miles across the border from the Empire State.

On this day there was car after car after car of cigarette smokers who are now coming to Pennsylvania to buy their favorite pack.

It comes after New York hiked its tax on cigarettes an additional $1.25 a pack.

Stanley Potter drove 13 miles to get there from Binghamton.

"Because they went up a buck and a quarter up there in New York. The taxes are outrageous! I'm not going to pay $6.50 for a pack of cigarettes anymore," Potter said.

His pack of Marlboros is less than $5 at Smokin' Joe's in Great Bend Township.

Next door, at Tobacco Junction, Bob Auble noticed a lot of New Yorkers coming in to buy smokes, even before the new tax.

"They were coming in buying two or three cartons at a time. It's going to be even worse now," Auble said.

New York's new cigarette tax is considered the highest in the nation.
Smokers there now pay $2.75 a pack just in taxes alone. It's even worse in New York City, which has it's own tax on cigarettes. Smokes in the Big Apple could now cost more than $10 a pack.

Dave Homza of Kirkwood sums up his reaction. "I'm going to try to quit. It's easier said than to be done," Homza said. He's not alone.

The Empire State's health commissioner expects 140,000 New Yorkers to quit smoking because of the increase.

Stanley Potter knows he won't be one of them. "Either that or quit smoking. I'd rather just come down here, you know," Potter added.

Now the bad news for smokers here in Pennsylvania.

There's a proposal in Harrisburg this year to hike Pennsylvania's cigarette tax an extra 10-cents per pack to help pay for expanded health care coverage.