On the Hunt for Cigarettes Missing Waynesboro Stickers

She normally collects taxes, but Waynesboro's treasurer is now collecting something a bit more unusual. Stephanie Beverage is on the hunt for cigarettes missing an important sticker.

Bright and early Thursday morning Waynesboro's treasurer, along with a police escort, went collecting. And what were they collecting? Cigarettes - dozens of cartons of cigarettes.

Beverage said, "I got another anonymous report the same retailers were again selling them without the Waynesboro city stamp."

According to code each pack of cigarettes is required to have both the Virginia stamp and the city stamp.

Beverage stated, "We identify ourselves. We ask if we can look at their cigarettes. And the ones that weren't stamped we put them in a bag. And they know the deal. We've been there before."

That's because last April Stephanie Beverage went to the exact same stores seizing cigarettes. This time two of the previous four were repeat offenders.

Each stamp is nearly twenty cents, so when a pack of cigarettes is sold without the stamp, Beverage says "It's tax revenue for the city we're not getting. Somewhere the services and the stuff that the city has to provide is going to have to be made up somewhere, and the citizens are going to be the ones to suffer."

According to the treasurer the cigarettes that were seized are now city property. Last April they sold seized cigarettes at city hall for $3.00 a pack, which meant thousands of dollars for Waynesboro's general fund.