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• Gristedes chief still on warpath on cheap Indian cigarettes 

The freshly remodeled Gristedes supermarket on 25 University Place has expanded its space, adding new sections for beer, hot food, a salad bar, bakery and organic products, all looking like crowd-pleasers beneath Thanksgiving decorations strung above the aisles.

But cigarettes are no longer on sale here -- seemingly a sign of the times in this upscale Greenwich Village neighborhood near New York University.

"We haven't had them for some time now," said an assistant manager who identified himself only as Thomas. He noted that cigarettes are available at other Gristedes stores in New York (about 20 still carry them), even though he believes the demand is down. The main reason for the decline in tobacco sales, another Gristedes manager said, is that "people know where they can get them elsewhere" for half the price that conventional retailers in New York charge -- upward of $95 per carton, with $4.25 in state and city taxes tacked on.

He was alluding to untaxed tobacco sold on Indian reservations, a subject that has bedeviled convenience-store operators and New York governors from Cuomo to Paterson.

Led by its Greek-born owner and C.E.O., John Catsimatidis, a longtime New York City mayoral wannabe who smokes an occasional cigar, Gristedes Foods Inc. has claimed in protracted litigation that Indian merchants on two Eastern Long Island reservations are luring away New York customers, and even helping to fund organized crime gangs and terrorist groups like Hezbollah with bulk sales, a charge some politicians dismiss as absurd but others solemnly repeat. . . .

Since he cares so much about health, why does he sell any cigarettes at his grocery stores?

"There is such a thing as freedom of choice," the mogul replied. "I lecture my wife, who smokes, and tell her, Why don't you just have one or two instead of more? It's like what the Greek philosophers say: Everything in moderation."

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