Mapping Foreclosure: By Waves, By Dots

From a distance, the Boston housing market looks more like a wave, or one of many troughs in a receding tide. Some parts of the city are further down than others, just as some tidemarks around the country stretch farther out to sea. Up close, the steps backward or forward are small, like the fitful trudge of horseshoe crabs.

At a meeting of Mayor Menino’s Foreclosure Intervention Team Wednesday morning, there were some steps forward to report from an especially beleaguered area around Hendry Street in Dorchester. A tenant facing eviction from a house recently in mortgage trouble was about to sign a one-year lease. The city was offering to buy five three-decker condos that were taken by foreclosure. There was an offer to buy a three-decker beset with mortgage trouble and a legal dispute. And the city was in discussions with the US Dept. of Housing & Urban Development over a vacant property around the corner on Coleman Street. Buyers had agreements to buy two other houses on Hendry Street and Clarkson Street. And one more three-decker on Hendry Street would soon be up for auction.

The Hendry Street area was also getting attention from the police, as well as outreach to property owners and tenants. And, to help break the deadlock on foreclosed housing throughout Boston, the Mayor’s administration had also filed a home rule petition to impose a surtax of 10%.

The rest was putting the numbers in perspective.

“We’re not as bad as ’93 and ’94, but we never want to get there,” said the mayor. “And all the predictions we get are the worst is yet to come.”

Officials say one sign that more trouble is on the way is that only 30% of the adjustable-rate mortgages they’re concerned about have jumped to a higher interest rate.

“Nine hundred eighty-two loans have already reset,” said mayoral advisor Pat Canavan. “We’re anticipating in the next few months, through April of ’08, 750. So, we’re not at the peak of this issue yet.”

Also growing is the percentage of properties for which banks fail to find a new buyer. That means the party holding the mortgage takes title, dotting the city’s map (above) with one more “Real Estate Owned Property” or “REO.” According to the Dept. of Neighborhood Development (DND), in 2005, 48% of the foreclosures in Boston ended up as REOs. In 2006, it was 81%. Last year, the figure was 93%. Currently, the city has 565 REO properties.

DND figures put the number of foreclosure petitions on Residential property in Boston at 2432, which is up from the 2006 total by 75%. There were 703 foreclosure deeds, which is up from the 2006 figure by 169%. According to DND’s Deputy Director, William Cotter, the totals are evenly split between property owned by occupants and investors.

Cotter says 76% of the foreclosed properties are in four parts of Boston: Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan and Hyde Park. In parts of those areas with concentrations of subprime lending and foreclosures, he explained, property values fell last year by 10-15%.

“There are other neighborhoods in our city that are not affected in any way,” he added, “but this value is directly related to the problem.”

City officials say their prevention programs reduced the number of potential foreclosures by 30%.

“This effort today,” said Cotter, “and the effort of the mayor is to stay ahead of those things—stay ahead of the REO properties and the abandoned and vacant property, so that we can minimize the overall impact. If we can do that, the decline may not be as low, and we can help the market recover more quickly.”

As in years of decline during the early 1990’s, early 1980’s and much of the 1970’s, a small amount of time could make the difference between a house fit to market and a house damaged by vandals or plundered for materials such as copper pipes.

Even if worse things have yet to strike the Boston housing market, it’s still possible to go from foreclosure sale to profitable investment in a single day, even when a property’s losing value. Records show that’s what happened January 31 with a three-decker on Armandine Street in Dorchester. One buyer purchased the three units from three different lenders for a total of $299,000. Then, in what might be called a condo deconversion, the whole house was sold the same day to a pair of buyers for $450,000, with a 10% down payment. The same three units sold in 2006 for a total of $810,000.

Hendry Street Foreclosures: Fluke or Portent?

When it comes to property owners around Hendry St in Dorchester, Leonard Habiyakare, Jr. is an exception. While some have sold out over the past few years, and others succumbed to foreclosure, Habiyakare has been struggling to keep his three-family house, which is at the end of the street. With help from ACORN, he managed to get his mortgage modified, but he still has trouble finding tenants.

“It is very—I have to say—very strange,” he said in a recent interview on Neighborhood Network News, “because you walk down the street, and there’s no neighbors. Actually, I only have two neighbors—like down the street. I have two houses next to me, and the others all have plywood.”

When Mayor Thomas Menino announced a foreclosure intervention plan for Hendry Street last Thursday, things were still going downhill. Officials at the announcement stood in front of four three-deckers in a row that were vacant and boarded up. The house across the street—though still occupied—had a “for sale” sign. And, before the announcement was over, a tenant in Habiyakare’s house, Donia Jefferson, came out to say the company servicing the mortgage wanted her out by Tuesday.

To break the chain of foreclosures on Hendry, Coleman and Clarkson Streets, the city plans to invest in fixing up buildings and take legal action. During most of Menino’s tenure, the city’s housing strategy has mainly been to use a modest public investment for leveraging more units in private ownership, preferably with owner occupants. The strategy on Hendry Street is dramatically different: a heavy public investment, with outside ownership likely for what officials can only hope will be the short term. The city’s plan includes taking at least five properties for back taxes.

“This is a special project are for us,” said Menino, “and we’re going to work to make this neighborhood what it was four years ago, where people wanted to live and raise their children.”

But even the best of times on Hendry Street are part of a long, troubled history. The street has been periodically infamous for crime problems, going back at least to the anti-drug campaigns led by Georgette Watson in the mid-1980s. And the rash of foreclosures—at least 12 properties on Hendry, Clarkson, and Coleman Streets counted by city officials—quickly spread through an area dominated by absentee ownership, much of it by a trust for one family.

The family trust sold a home to Habiyakare in April, 2005. By early October, 2006, the trust sold three other properties on Hendry and Clarkson streets to a single owner. Within little more than one year, two of those properties had filings for foreclosure, as would another property purchased from the same trust on Ridgewood Street, Dorchester, in December 2006. A property sold by the trust nearby on Quincy Street would be taken by foreclosure in January of 2007, after yet another change of ownership.

The path to the foreclosure process was also quick at 19 and 21 Hendry Street. Both three-deckers were converted by the same buyers. The units for each building sold on the same day—in March and September 2006—and for the same price: $299,000. They were all on the way to foreclosure by the fall of 2007. And the last owner before the filing for foreclosure on 17 Hendry Street was involved in the conversion of a three-decker on Draper St, Dorchester. That conversion resulted in foreclosure filings on two units.

“You superimpose the housing stuff on top of all the rest of it, and that’s a recipe made for disaster,” said Davida Andelman, a community health organizer for the Bowdoin Street Health Center.

A neighborhood resident for 23 years, Andelman says it was difficult to organize Hendry St residents because fear and intimidation were “outrageous.”

“It really is crying out for owner-occupancy of the houses,” she said. “That would go a long way.”

City officials and people familiar with times of trouble for housing in Dorchester agree it will take more than market forces to fill vacancies around Hendry Street. Just across Hendry St from the four vacant three-deckers in a row is a block with 8 homes, all but two of them vacant. Still at least partially occupied is the two-family house at 27-29 Hendry St. A lender filed for foreclosure on the property more than a year ago, and the owner is also faced with foreclosure on another property in Dorchester, on Carlos St.

“We haven’t seen anything quite like this neighborhood, where in such a small geographic area there’s such a concentration of foreclosures,” said mayoral advisor Pat Canavan, in an interview on Neighborhood Network News.

Canavan said there will probably be two buyers salvaging the foreclosed houses, possibly as rental property until the neighborhood around Hendry St is stabilized.

“This is one situation where we think the private market will not work,” said Canavan. “Across the city, we don’t anticipate a whole lot of city involvement on foreclosed properties because we think the private market will take care of it.”

One observer who has been rehabilitating distressed properties in Dorchester since the late 1970’s, Patrick Cooke, agrees that it’s too soon to expect new owner-occupants to take on a home around Hendry St.

“Whoever buys it has got to be in for the long haul,” said Cooke, “and be prepared to lose money for several years.”

Though Cooke says the density and lack of open space around Hendy St would always make the area a challenge, he says the sharp rise and fall of the real estate market has also left other neighborhoods in Dorchester vulnerable.

“There are a whole lot more streets that will be as problematic as Hendry St,” he predicted.

While few streets in Dorchester have the same concentration of boarded-up buildings, signs of financial distress can be found as far away as Ashmont Street in Neponset and in the St. Mark’s area. In a conversion at 11 St. Mark’s Rd, three units that sold in 2006 for at least $325,000 apiece were all at least in foreclosure process by January of this year. And a condo in a three-decker on Ashmont St that sold less than three years ago for more than $400,000—with hardwood floors, marble countertops and Jacuzzi—is currently on the market for $250,000.

The transactions leading to foreclosure around Hendry Street also took place near the peak of a real estate market, when prices soared as multi-family houses were converted into condominiums. Though the market left many other properties noticeably improved, the flood of financing around Hendry St only made it possible for sellers to walk away before the next buyers defaulted.

“We went through a period in basically four years in which it made no sense to buy a three-decker as a three-decker. The people who bought three-deckers were in the market for a conversion,” said Cooke.

“If we don’t change the way of mortgage lending now,” he said, “this will be a way of life.”

For more coverage on foreclosures in Dorchester, visit the Dorchester Reporter.

Primary Impressions from Boston

There are two less than enchanted views of the Democratic presidential primary vote in Boston and across Massachusetts. One is that Barack Obama should have done better, and that his charisma and high-profile endorsements failed to meet expectations for votes. The other view is that Hillary Clinton’s advantage among Massachusetts Democrats was less about her appeal as a public figure than about campaign spending and organization.

There were 116,024 votes cast from Boston in the Democratic primary alone. That’s more than twice the number cast in a primary contest 8 years ago between Bill Bradley and a heavily favored vice president, Al Gore. The number of Boston votes in all parties yesterday was also about 70% of the total vote for president in November of 2000. Both comparisons are unfair, though they place the turnout roughly half-way between a typical Mass. presidential primary and a tightly contested final vote for President.

Obama’s win in Boston (with almost 53% of the vote) was as expected as Clinton’s win in Massachusetts. It was hardly surprising that Clinton carried South Boston, West Roxbury, Brighton, and (by a small margin) Dorchester’s Ward 16 (Neponset, Cedar Grove), along with the Savin Hill area (Ward 13, Precinct 10). She also carried the main precinct in Chinatown (Ward 3, Precinct 8) with more than 60% of the vote. Citywide, Clinton got a little over 44% of the vote.

Obama, as expected, had a decisive edge in Boston’s African-American community, in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan. He carried the Back Bay, the Fenway, Jamaica Plain, and Mission Hill. He won some precincts in the South End, Roslindale (between Fallon Field and the Arnold Arboretum, and the Washington-Beech public housing and former High Point Village developments) and Hyde Park (mostly between the Neponset River and Hyde Park Avenue, north of Cleary Square; along with Sunnyside and Stony Brook areas, and neighboring Georgetowne). But Clinton won in other sections of Ward 18—Fairmount, Readville, and Clarendon Hills.

State Rep. Michael Moran said he was somewhat surprised by the breadth of support for Clinton in Charlestown. “She won the ‘Townie’ vote,” said Moran. “But the ‘Toonie’ vote went her way, too.” And Moran attributes Clinton’s win in East Boston to a combination of the older base of Italian-Americans and the newer base of Latinos, many of them recent immigrants. Clinton has enjoyed a solid advantage from Latinos in other states, especially California, but the advantage was less apparent from returns in Jamaica Plain, where all but a few precincts (such as Jamaica Hills’ Ward 19, Precinct 2) were carried by Obama.

To be sure, one factor in the Boston vote was the organizational help from Clinton supporters such as Mayor Thomas Menino and House Speaker Sal DiMasi. If it isn't necessarily fair to see Obama's win in Boston as a sign of weakness for Menino, the same goes for how Clinton's statewide victory reflects on prominent Obama supporters. Obama's margin of victory in Boston was much smaller than Deval Patrick's in 2006, but no one could say Kerry Healey's appeal to voters across the board in Boston was anything near the appeal of Hillary Clinton among the city's Democrats.


The total number of Republican votes from Boston in the presidential primary was less than the total for 2000. That could mean a drop in support for the party, though it also be the response to John McCain’s clear nationwide advantage over former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. But in the figures from Boston, the race was tighter than it was for the Democrats: McCain with 46%, Romney with 44%, then Ron Paul finishing 3rd with a little more than 4%. McCain did noticeably better in the Back Bay than in South Boston. That might be explained by a difference in reaction to Romney’s more persistent call for tougher control of immigration. The immigration issue might also explain McCain’s strong showing in Chinatown’s Ward 3, Precinct 8, where Republicans gave him 75% of the vote.

To invoke another unfair comparison, McCain got a bigger local share of the primary vote in 2000. That year, there were no other Republican candidates with anything like Romney's connection to Massachusetts, but there was George W. Bush. In the Boston total for 2000, McCain got 66.4% of the vote, while Bush got 27.7%. In South Boston the margin was even more lopsided, with McCain getting 72.1% of the vote and Bush, 24.1%. In the 2008 Republican primary vote from South Boston, Romney outpolled McCain by a count of 901 to 874. The difference between McCain results in the two Massachusetts primaries is partly about geography, but also about the relative discomfort with some of McCain's positions--a discomfort that could be rechanneled in November.

Road to Choice Through Community Learning?

When the Jeremiah Burke High School reopens in Grove Hall, students will come back to more than renovated classrooms. In addition to a new gym, there will be a new branch library, and a new community center, all in one setting.

The executive director of Project RIGHT in Grove Hall, Jorge Martinez, says he remembers when supporters of the library were nervous about giving up a safe haven on Crawford Street. More than a year after the groundbreaking for the $42 million project, says Martinez, the library’s friends group is enlisting members to share a new safe haven with students.

Martinez calls the arrangement a “support network” that will provide students with “wrap-around services.” It’s also a change in the map of education, where the pursuit of quality and equity has often taken students outside their neighborhoods or outside the city.

“Adults need structure, but children even more so,” says Martinez. “If you provide the structure, plug in wonderful people who can be teachers, who can be mentors, you reach that equity piece pretty quick.”

In the State of the City address last week at the Strand Theatre, Mayor Thomas Menino referred to the same combination of services as “Community Learning.”

“Imagine if these facilities, their programming, and their personnel were all aligned, so that curriculum and after-school programming could be seamlessly delivered from morning to evening,” said Menino. “Imagine if your children had not just a teacher or two to push their progress, but a whole network of caring adults in a series of sites throughout your neighborhood.”

Combining schools with community centers in Boston goes back at least as far as the 1970s. More recent are some of the widely accepted ideas of what’s needed for quality education: longer school days, after-school programs run by public agencies or community-based non-profits, and stronger ties between schools and their students’ families. The innovations have also been reinforced by results from some of Boston’s charter schools, pilot schools, and district schools with extra time for learning.

Also changing is the use of the word “integration.” In the 1970s, the word usually meant relocation, whether through busing, or moving to a more affluent community. A long-time activist and Dean Emeritus of the Boston University School of Social Work, Hubie Jones, has been trying to close the gap between schools and human services since the 1980s. For him, “integration” means alignment between classroom learning and other kinds of help, whether social services or after-school tutoring.

“Everything we know,” says Jones, “tells us kids who are at risk--who’ve been traumatized--they and their parents have to have very good support services if they’re going to take advantage of the education that’s offered to them.”

Jones acknowledges this kind of integration “would make more sense if it was in your neighborhood.” And, in the same address last Tuesday, Mayor Menino spoke about exploring ways to at least slow down the rising cost of student transportation. He said that cost will increase by 50% in the next five years.

“I guarantee you,” said the mayor, “that we absolutely will continue to provide choice, but I believe that we can rethink our school assignment zones, continue providing children in every neighborhood with access to high-performing schools, and save up to ten million dollars of transportation costs.”

The mayor also called for rethinking student transportation four years ago. After a series of neighborhood forums, there were, aside from creation of more schools for grades K through eight, only minor changes in the assignment process. In his speech last week, Menino said Boston now has more high-performing schools, and he called for more programs to attract high-performing students. But some members of the City Council question whether Boston has enough options for quality to allow for a significant savings on busing.

In recent years, new options have sprung up in areas where many public school students live--in Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan. But the state currently ranks 95 of Boston’s 145 district schools as needing improvement, corrective action, or restructuring. And the chair of the Council’s Education Committee, Chuck Turner, says the mayor should have been more explicit in calling for changes that would avoid a racial gap in access to quality schools.

“Yes, I want to see a plan that moves forward, that saves us money, that fits in with what we’re trying to do,” Turner said in a interview on Neighborhood Network News. “But that plan has to be fair for all.”

More receptive to the mayor’s remarks was a long-time supporter of walk-to schools, Council President Maureen Feeney.

“We must, at all costs, maintain choice for our parents and ensure that all of our schools meet the highest standards of quality education,” said Feeney, in a statement released by her office. “But having schools and children rooted in the same neighborhood contributes to the overall vitality of the community and enhances the overall educational experience.”

Councilor at-large Michael Flaherty says, under the current process, many students are assigned by lottery and forced to commute within a school zone for as much as three hours a day.

“Thousands of parents are not getting their choice,” said Flaherty. “And, technically, that may involve building more schools.”

Jones says Boston has a chance to get more funding for “Community Learning” from the state and federal government, as well as foundations. “The question is,” he added, “is the capacity there in terms of money and personnel.”

In his address, Mayor Menino promised the “Community Learning” endeavor would get $1 million this year from the city. A senior project director with Mass. Advocates for Children, John Mudd, says, given the amount of money so far, and the number of options for quality schools, it’s too soon for that many dramatic changes in student transportation.

One million dollars, said Mudd, said “could create some small models, but it’s not going to get wholesale change.”

Rocky Ride Ahead for City Leaders

Boston City Councilors began 2008 last Monday with memories of Albert “Dapper” O’Neil, Weepin’ Willie Robinson, and the most anemic local election in several years.

In her inaugural address, Council President Maureen Feeney brought up the low turnout last November as one reason for having a citywide forum of community groups. The forum would take place in April, at the Mass. Convention & Exhibition Center in South Boston.

“It is incumbent upon this body to do our part to increase our citizens’ civic engagement,” said Feeney, in an address beginning her second term as Council president.

Feeney said she wanted the forum to “start a conversation about the city’s civic health and vitality.” Along with providing training and support for activists, she said, she wants an event that “raises people’s expectations and understanding of their government.”

If her idea had some logic, the timing was less than ideal, coming midway between high turnout competitions for President in Iowa and New Hampshire. Mayor Thomas Menino has greeted the idea of the forum with skepticism, though not without trying to influence the agenda. Right after Feeney’s address, Menino said there should be talk about the city’s need for new revenue and the obstacles to local option taxes posed by the State House.

“I think it’s a very gloomy future,” said Menino, “when it comes to revenue for our city.”

What the mayor did not say was that the forum would fail to stir interest. With a large presidential turnout expected in November, even a modest springtime surge in civic engagement is hard to rule out. But so is a voter backlash in the fall, especially if a high turnout in Massachusetts also gets a chance to vote on abolishing the state income tax.

The past year brought about some improvements in public safety and the Boston Public Schools, and the improvements came with higher spending. Both areas continue to have serious problems (starting with gun violence and the dropout rate), and no elected official denies the need for even more improvement.

But city and state officials also warn that meeting expectations this year will become more difficult. To begin with, the United States is all but certain to experience a recession. While worse in some other parts of the country, the subprime mortgage meltdown has taken a severe toll on parts of Boston, with prices down from peak levels in some neighborhoods by as much as 31% for single-family homes and 9% for condominiums. Even if the figures reflect more volatility than value, they’re certainly cause for worry.

Any decrease in state revenue will affect cities and towns when it comes to local aid and money for education, not to mention the state’s new health program. And, as the Boston Municipal Research Bureau warns, declining enrollment in the Boston Public Schools will result in less money from the federal government’s Title I reading program.

It remains to be seen whether the campaign to abolish the state income tax will be on the ballot, let alone prevail. But this year’s campaign has already met its first signature goal. When the measure was on the ballot in 2002, abolition received 45% of the vote, despite a campaign with a low budget and low profile.

There’s no question that the result of abolishing the income tax--cutting the state budget by 39%--will, in different quarters, meet with either fervent opposition or fervent support. The task for leaders on either side of the question is to win over the many other people with mixed feelings: people who know they get something of value from the public sector, but who are also financially stretched and sometimes infuriated by certain spending decisions. Rather than embrace or reject a fully developed tax policy, many of these voters in the middle will simply send a message.

It was during the presidential election year of 1980 when voters approved the limits on local property taxes in Proposition 2½. This was the same election in which Massachusetts favored Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter. This year, the unpopular incumbent happens to be a Republican, but he’s not on the ballot. If this year’s economic downturn somehow stops short of a recession, it will hardly be much better than the mix of stagnation and higher prices in 1980. And even if most of the recent growth in the tax burden (especially as a percentage of income) is from the property tax, that hardly takes the income tax off the hook.

If voters do abolish the income tax, the changes in the short term will be more dramatic, since Proposition 2½ only put the brakes on tax growth. State legislators and Governor Patrick could always fill some gaps by introducing or increasing other levies, though it’s much too early to say what these would mean for revenue amounts or distribution of the tax burden.

Another lesson from 1980 is that voters who send messages react to messages from elected officials. Two years earlier, Governor Michael Dukakis had campaigned for re-election with a growing budget surplus, part of which he used to increase local aid. None of that increase went into lower property taxes for people in Boston, and Dukakis lost the Democratic primary to Ed King (who supported the forerunner of Proposition 2½, California's Propositon 13). Intended as such or not, there was a message from Dukakis and Boston Mayor Kevin White. White won his fourth straight term in 1979, but when it came time to vote on Proposition 2½, some of its supporters in Boston included public employees and civically engaged people who depended on government programs they really valued.

After Proposition 2½, there were cutbacks, whether measured in MBTA service (partially funded by cities and towns) or in the closing of schools, police stations, and firehouses. There were layoffs and plenty of acrimony. More than a quarter of a century later, it’s possible to say some of the cutbacks were justified. Even the local budget constraints have been offset—more than Proposition 2½ opponents predicted--by periods of growth in the real estate market and the state budget. And no one’s trying to have Proposition 2½ repealed.

It’s even possible that adjusting to abolition of the state income tax will be no more difficult. If leaders—whether the elected or the civically engaged—have any doubts about that, the time to send a message has arrived.

Chalking up a New Year in Boston: 2008

Hometowners and visitors crossed paths in Boston for the annual "First Night" celebrations. These were a chance for mingling between people from different walks of life, and for crossing the line from spectator to participant. In photo, left, Henry McPherson signs in for the new year at invitation of Sidewalk Sam.
See more photos.

City and Youth Try to Butt Out Cigarette Ads

On the outside of one convenience store in Dorchester, at the corner of Adams Street and Centre Street, they spread like a rash: 23 ads for 8 brands of cigarettes. The ads run from doors to windows, and around the corner to the side of the building. There are even ads partially blocked by other ads.

For Mohamed Chibou, a compliance officer in the City of Boston Tobacco Control Program, the sight is fairly common among convenience stores in areas such as Dorchester and Roxbury.

“As you look at the advertising in front, it’s mostly tobacco ads,” he said, “and there’s a reason for it to be there.”

Youth activists from Mission Hill, Dorchester, and other neighborhoods say the reason is to get more young people started on smoking. And, Thursday, city officials stood with them to announce tougher enforcement of city regulations on advertising.

According to a survey by the youth group Sociedad Latina, the neighborhood with the highest percentage of store ads promoting tobacco products was Dorchester, with more than 49%. The figures were almost as high for Mattapan, South Boston, and Mission Hill.

“You go to Centre St in West Roxbury, you won’t see these signs,” said Mayor Thomas Menino.

“What we notice with a lot of stores in Dorchester and Roxbury,” said Chibou, “is that pretty much the whole front of the store is covered in tobacco advertising, and much of it at eye-level for children.” Even some stores with fewer ads visible from outside have several bunched together around their checkout areas, where they’re hard to miss.

Youth activists have been campaigning for ad restrictions for the last four years. They say the store ads often appeal to the young by design and their eye-level.

“They see the advertisements and they think it’s cool, it’s colorful,” said Shanaya Coke, a member of BOLD (“Breath of Life Dorchester”) Teens.

The survey by Sociedad Latina also shows that more than one-third of the tobacco ads were in stores near a school, community center, or playground.

“A lot of kids between the ages of 4 and 8 are going to see these advertisements, not adults,” said 15 year-old Jonathan Ondrejko, a member of the Healthy Roslindale Coalition, at a City Council hearing on storefront ads earlier this month.

Tobacco companies agreed to restrict marketing to youth under a legal settlement with 46 states in 1998. Lorillard, which makes Newport cigarettes, has a youth smoking prevention program. The makers of Kool cigarettes, RJ Reynolds, say on their website that their standards include minimizing “exposure of minors to tobacco advertising.” But another corporate standard says that communication with adult smokers regarding their brand choices “is essential for effective competition.”

According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, tobacco companies increased their marketing budgets in the first three years after the settlement by two-thirds. “Most of the increase,” says the campaign website, “was in retail store marketing, which is highly effective at reaching kids.”

Officials and advocates also put some of the blame for smoking by young people on magazine advertising and earlier cutbacks in prevention programs by the state. But the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids notes that studies show 75% of teens shop at convenience stores at least once a week.

“Those signs are not just for business inside the store,” said City Councilor Mike Ross. “I think those signs on the front are driving business outside the store for future cigarette purchases.”

City regulations restrict advertising by volume and placement. They limit ads to only 30% of the area in windows, and ads displayed more than 15 days require a permit. At a City Council hearing chaired by Ross earlier this month, officials talked about possibly changing the regulations. But it’s expected any attempt to ban ads for one type of product such as cigarettes would trigger a legal challenge.

Even supporters of restrictions acknowledge there will be a financial price for storeowners who get paid to display tobacco ads.

“There needs to be responsibility in advertising. I don’t think anybody disagrees with that,” said the executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission, Barbara Ferrer. “And some of the responsibility should be borne by storeowners as well.”

Officials announced their call for limiting ads at Tropic Food Market, a family-owned convenience on Blue Hill Ave, in Dorchester. The store sells cigarettes and displays some advertising inside, but no ads are visible from the street.




“Our concern is for the teens, young kids around here, what they’re exposed to,” said co-owner Karen Wint.

Wint says there’s also opposition to smoking at her church.

“We have three kids at home,” she said. “We don’t want them to get involved with these ads.”