Thieves stealing cigarettes from convience stores

Naji Abdelhadi was standing behind the counter, nearing the end of another 16-hour workday, when they stormed in. It was about 11 p.m. on a Saturday last March and three of Abdelhadi's children were also in his south London convenience store. "I thought it was kind of a joke," he recalled this week.

Suddenly, there was pepper spray in his eyes. A knife to his 14-year-old son's throat. His two other kids, 12 and five, hiding under a table.

One of the thieves, a bandana covering his face, jumped the counter.

Though he couldn't see, Abdelhadi -- whose store has been robbed five times in two years -- knew what they were after.

Cigarettes, as always

The cost of a carton has gone up $21 since 2001 -- to about $6 * -- according to industry estimates, and the province raked in about $1 billion from taxes on cigarette sales last year.

While the goal might be to price smokers out of the habit, tax hikes have dovetailed with a dramatic rise in violent crime inside Ontario's convenience stores.

In London alone this year, at least a dozen store clerks were robbed for cigarettes.

Abdelhadi and industry experts -- who support taxing tobacco -- blame the crime wave on "aggressive" tax increases.

Abdelhadi, 44, lost $10,000 in smokes in June during a late-night break-in and, like thousands of other Ontario store owners, has become a bystander in the province's war on smoking.

A study being published Monday by the Ontario Convenience Store Association, a non-profit group representing 6,000 retailers, shows in-store violent crime has risen 28 per cent over the past three years.