SECONDFRONT
The
THURSDAY April 14, 2011
SALISBURY POST
3A
www.salisburypost.com
Spencer residents speak out against pawn shops BY EMILY FORD eford@salisburypost.com
SPENCER — In 20 years, Debbie Barnhardt Basinger’s jewelry shop in downtown Spencer has been robbed one time. She blames the pawn shop that was down the street. “They robbed me during the day and took the jewelry to the pawn shop a block away,” Basinger said. The pawn shop has since closed and Spencer now bans the businesses, although one still is in the town limits. When the town board this week considered allowing pawn shops in the three-block Central Business
District, Basinger and many other residents and business owners spoke against the idea. “It would be the death of us,” said Cara Reische, co-founder of the Green Goat Gallery. Pawn shops don’t fit with the downtown, could increase crime and have image problems, they said. “We should have a standard better than that in downtown Spencer,” said Bob Oswald of the town’s Historic Preservation Commission. Aldermen disliked the idea of pawn shops downtown but said they might work in other areas of Spencer. Planning Board recommended pawn shops also be allowed in districts zoned Highway Business.
Aldermen sent the issue back to planners for further study and asked members to research whether pawn shops correlate to an increase in the crime rate. Police Chief Michael James said he’s never studied the issue but thought an uptick in crime could accompany a pawn shop because people steal items to pawn them. Alderman Jeff Morris defended pawn shops as one of the most heavily regulated businesses in the state. Pawn shop owners must meet strict requirements regarding what they can accept and check a computer software system maintained by law enforcement for stolen goods, he said.
Sellers must present a valid ID, and security cameras are in place, he said. Downtown should offer businesses that will bring visitors at the N.C. Transportation Museum across the street to downtown Spencer, said Nick Bishop, manager of Stoudemire Furniture. “We’ve only got three blocks,” he said. “It’s a very small area, and we have to be very careful what we do allow in that section of town because of the effect it’s going to have...on tourists.” Mike Deal, who was shot on his front porch in 2006 after he returned from walking his dog, said he’s afraid a pawn shop would attract the
same kind of “punks” who attacked him. Pawn shops are legitimate businesses but shady, Melissa Blount said. “Any space we might take up with a pawn shop would be one less coffee shop ... or some other restaurant,” she said. Anne Waters said her students at the Blue Ewe Yoga Studio told her they would be fearful coming to class if there was a pawn shop downtown. “They thought it was a horrible idea,” she said. Contact reporter Emily Ford at 704-797-4264.
Damage from storm not bad enough State won’t provide aid after officials visit BY SHELLEY SMITH ssmith@salisburypost.com
PhOTO BY KAYe BROwn hIRST
The history Club at Rowan Museum had those at Tuesday’s meeting hold up cards wishing the county a happy 258th birthday. April 12 was the date the county was founded in 1753.
“There’s a big, big market for it. It’s immense. I could not believe it.”
CIGARETTES FROM 1A a pack. The average state excise tax on cigarettes is $1.45 a pack. North Carolina has a state tax of 45 cents per pack, though a bill introduced in the 2011 General Assembly proposes a $1-per-pack increase to the national average. Many smokers have had enough. While it’s cheaper in North Carolina (a tobacco state), a pack of cigarettes on average in the United States now costs $5.51. The make-your-own smoker can produce his cigarettes for an average of $1 a pack. Jack Phillips, who owns Jack’s Grocery on Bringle Ferry Road, has recently promoted “roll your own” tobacco products on his sign out front. He said it’s a growing business for his store, and a corner behind the counter is devoted to bags of pipe tobacco, cigarette tubes and cigarettemaking machines. “We got in late in the ball game,” Phillips said, remembering how customers kept asking for the cheaperpriced pipe tobacco to make their own cigarettes. “There’s a big, big market for it. It’s immense. I could not believe it.” Jack’s sells 6- to 16-ounce bags of pipe and cigarette tobacco with brand names such as OHM, 4 Aces, Gambler, Bull Durham and Dark
The storms that blew through Rowan County last week did not cause enough damage for residents to qualify for low-interest loans or individual assistance grants, state officials said Wednesday. To qualify, an area must have had at least 25 homes and/or businesses with at least 40 percent loss to the structure, with major damage or complete destruction, the state’s emergency management team said. Rowan County’s damage assessment team took 36 reports of damages across Rowan after the April 5 storm.
On April 7, state officials visited Rowan County to look at reports and see a few sites. Rowan County Emergency Management Division Coordinator Frank Thomason said he was waiting for state emergency management officials to contact him with the “official notification,” after contacting them several times over the past week concerning Rowan County’s state assessment. The storms crippled Rowan County, leaving thousands without power and some in the dark until April 7, closed Rowan-Salisbury Schools April 5 due to power outages, and caused some to lose their homes and businesses.
Horse. They come in “flavors” including mint, bold, regular, natural and mellow. “Most of the time, the OHM gets wiped out,” a clerk said. Prices for a 16-ounce bag of pipe tobacco, for example, range from $10.99 to $14.99. The store also sells inexpensive cigarette tubes in boxes of 100, 200 and 250. And it offers six different cigarette-making machines, with prices ranging from $26.76 to $42.99. The typical “roll-yourown” customer is actually using one of these machines at home. He fills a narrow
In the beginning, Moose ordered pipe and cigarette tobacco for her makeyour-own customers by the bag. Now she orders it by the case. Allman, of the Tobacco JACK PHILLIPS Discount store, said the owner of Jack’s Grocery on pipe tobacco used by rollBringle Ferry Road your-own customers is in “a lower tax bracket” because for years it repreWorking-class people sented a declining market. have to do what they can to Pipe tobacco is in the “L” save money, and if they classification, in which the JON C. lAKey/SALISBURY POST smoke, Phillips said, churntax is $2.70 per pound, Alling out their own cigarettes man said. A new makes sense. Cigarette tobacco is in section “It really makes sense,” the “J” class and taxed at was added he stressed. $24 a pound, he said. to the Teresa Hess, an employee When the government sales floor at Jack’s Grocery, makes sees the dramatic spike in at Jack’s her own cigarettes for about pipe tobacco sales due to Grocery $10 a carton. With her mapeople making their own chine, she can manufacture cigarettes, “I guarantee for cigarette mak- about a pack-and-a-half in 15 they’ll come out and put a minutes. She often produces hefty tax on that,” Allman ing supher cigarettes while watchsaid. plies. ing television. In the Tobacco Discount Hess’ sister and brotherstore, Ayjay (he didn’t ofin-law are making their own fer his last name) chose a compartment full of tobacco, cigarettes, and “I’ve talked bag of 4 Aces pipe tobacco and with a simple turn of a other customers into doing for $18.49 and grabbed a handle, injects the tobacco it,” she said. “They’ve enbox of cigarette tubes. He into a cigarette tube. joyed it.” said he can make a carton It’s a one-at-a-time Tammy Moose, owner of of cigarettes — 200 — in 45 process. Most of the tubes the Pine Ridge General minutes with his machine come with a filter. Store on Stokes Ferry Road, at home. Stores also sell plastic also has a corner of her store Mills, the man who cases to hold the cigarettes set aside for the roll-yourmakes two cartons a week, people produce. own customer. She said a said he has been doing it When Phillips first startprogression seems to occur for at least three years. ed offering the make-yourin which smokers change At home, he spreads out own items, his supplier from name brands to disall his cigarette-making wanted him to order at least count varieties to roll-yourstuff on the kitchen table $500 of product a week. own. — one of the new battlePhillips worried he wouldn’t “People are coming in and grounds for the smokers’ have enough business to asking for it,” she said. “This revolution. warrant that big of an order. is what they’re doing now Contact Mark Wineka at Now he orders three because the costs are so 704-797-4263, or mwinetimes that amount. much higher.” ka@ salisburypost.com.
shelley smith/SALISBURY POST
A pole was snapped in two.
CRASH FROM 1A out a fire hydrant, and ultimately losing a wheel before coming to rest in a small field in front of WSAT at 1525 Jake Alexander Blvd. The driver of the sedan ran from the scene, and a K-9 search proved unsuccessful. Debris from the green sedan and patrol car was scattered along the road and throughout the field. Salisbury Police, Rowan EMS and the Salisbury Fire Department responded. The 1200 block of Jake Alexander Boulevard was closed as crews from Duke Energy worked to replace the pole. The name of the Salisbury Police officer was not released Wednesday night, but authorities said he was being treated at Rowan Regional Medical Center for minor injuries.
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