Daily News from New York, New York • 33

DAILY NEWS, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1976 25 tee tfS BRIEFS rgmhed Btsttkg's Cost oard Vie Ids, Won To Mortheas Is Set at By ROBER CRANE Cigaret bootlegging by organized cri me has cost cities and states throughout the Northeast $1 billion in tax revenues over the last decade, a time when most governmental units have suffered from a lack of funds, tax and law enforcement officials said yesterday. from bootlegging over the last decade and would reap $97 million this year. City figures submitted to the group showed that in 1965 more than 1 billion packs of legally taxed cigarets entered the city and that the figure dipped to 753 million last year. Prior to 1971, when the tax rate was four cents per pack, bootlegging increased at a rate of about packs a year. But after a boost in the tax rate on July 1, 1971, it increased bv more than 300.000 packs annually.

Officials of the tax enforcement group said bootlegging was so lucrative that a small operation, averaging one trip from the South per week, could make as much as $195,000 per In the city alone, authorities estimated the tax loss at $114 million, an amount roughly equal to the cost of building the city's new Police Headquarters and building- Yankee Stadium. They said the state had lost $426 million to bootleggers since 1966, while the legitimate cigaret industry in the state suffered a $2 billion loss in gross sales between 1965 and 1975. The figures were drawn from statistics submitted by authorities in eight Northeastern states to the Eastern Seaboard Interstate Cigarette Tax Enforcement Group, a voluntary union of enforcement agencies. Paul Landau, who heads the group, said renewed signs of unrest among crime families seem linked to fights for jurisdictional control of bootleg cig-aret networks. "Not only are more organized-crime families getting into the racket," he said, "but small wars, marked by violent crimes, are taking place within the underground for control of the racket." Earned $749M in 10 Years Bootleggers, he said, use sophisticated radio communications to avoid police surveillance and roadblocks as they transport untaxed cigarets from the South to the Northeast, where most states have raised cigaret taxes to help meet growing budget deficits.

Landau said organized crime had taken at least $749 million End Adult Class The Board of Education, threatened with a lawsuit by a city councilman, has restored an adult vocational training program for 60 students whose classes were cut off Monday in midyear. The program, which runs during1 the day at Westinghouse Vocational High School in Brooklyn, teaches computer and radio-TV technology to recent high school graduates. The program was scheduled to close Monday with dozens of other adult education and after-school programs supported by city funds. Other programs, supported by federal and state money, are continuing. Last week, Councilman Abraham Gerges (D-Brooklyn) whose district includes Westing-house, won a temporary restraining order against shutting the program.

Yesterday, the Board of Education said that it had agreed to continue the program "on a slightly reduced scale." "The board had a commitment to these students," Gerges said. "It would take only $26,000 to run the program until June. "Of last year's class, 85 are now working in private industry at an average salary of $12,000. How can we disrupt such a program in the middle of the year?" The board said, however, that unless another source of funds could be found, the program would end in June and would not be run again next year. Jerry Adler Cabby Shot to Death in East Village A cab driver was found shot to death last night in the East Village, police reported.

Earl Williams, 27, of 1027 E. 216th Bronx, was found sprawled in the gutter on Seventh between Avenue and Avenue D. At first, police thought he had suffered a heart attack, but when he was taken to Beflevue Hospital, he was pronounced dead of a gunshot wound. Police theorized that Williams who had been shot through the right arm into his chest, had fought off an attempt to rob him of the $150 in cash he was carrying and was killed by the fleeing- gunman. Williams' yellow cab was found a short distance (-om his body.

Patrick Duj le 6 Hurt Battling Coney 2-Alarmer Four firemen and two fire captains were injured last night while fighting a two-alarm blaze in a four-story apartment building at 1921 Mermaid Ave. in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. Occupants of the building escaped injury. The two captains were injured when they crashed into each other as one attempted to flee intense heat on the second floor. The officer attempting to escape the flames, Capt.

Thomas Bres-lin. sustained a hip injury. The other officer, Capt. William Libasi, sustained a broken knee. Both were treated at Coney Island Hospital.

Four were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation. Robescn Estate: S750G; Most to Son When singer-political activist Paul Robeson died last month at the age of 77 in Philadelphia, he left an estate estimated at Reporting on 'Major Progress' i p. i- i i 1 yr 7 i Associated Press photo leacners union staffer Michael Porcello gestures as he makes on-1 he-scene progress report on negotiations to pickets yesterday in Newark. Union and Board of Education both reported "major progress" in efforts to resolve two-day-old strike by city's public-school teachers. Strikers claimed that 85 of teachers stayed away from system's 102 schools.

otbau ver Aii Raps Carey 0 i By MICHAEL PATTERSON Gov. Carey is "doing damn little" to help the city win support in Washington for a federal takeover of welfare and medicaid costs, Victor Gotbaum, head of the city's $150,000. This was -revealed yesterday when attorney Martin Popper filed Robeson's will for probate in Manhattan Surrogate Court. The controversial singer left three quarters of his estate to his son, Paul of Brooklyn and the rest to his sister, Mrs. Marion Forsythe, with whom he lived in Philadelphia.

Food Costs for Institutions Fall Again The City Purchasing Department said yesterdav that food it bought for city institutions declined in price by 1.2 in the last two weeks. The department buys $24 millon worth of food a year The decline continued a trend that has seen biweekly prices drop by 12.4 in the last six weeks, a department spokesman said. The prices are considered a good indicator of what housewives can expect to pay in supermarkets later. Meanwhile, the city Department of Consumer Affairs announced that the cost of feeding a family of four in the city last week declined 1.3 below the previous week's level. But the current $72.11 weekly cost is 9 higher than it was last vear at this time, the department said.

John Murphy Seeks Removal of Village Shop Sign The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission filed suit in New York State Supreme Court yesterday against the owners of a Greenwich Village hi-fi shop, seeking the removal of a sign which the commission says detracts from the historic district. The suit was filed against the owners of Crazy Eddie W. Eighth St. and Sixth winch has an 8-by-32-foot yellow sign above the store emblazoned with the words "Crazy Eddie" and cartoon fig-ures. The commission charged that the sign was "inharmonious" with the surrounding district and was destroying the area's ambiance.

Skyscraper Drops Solar-Energy Plans Plans to install a solar-energy system atop the 56-floor Citicorp Center building at 53d St. and Lexington now under construction, have been scrapped, it was disclosed yesterday. The federal Energy Research and Development Administration, which had expected to 'finance construction of the system, said an initial estimate of a saving in energy costs has been trimmed to $3,000 a year. This "small" eost saving, the federal agency said, is "not sufficient to justify" the $1 million cost of the solar system. Robert Carroll largest municipal union, complained yesterday.

Gotbaum, speaking before the baum, would not mean layoffs but would allow the city to use its employes "more efficiently" and allow for a continuation of services to the poor and the elderly. "Practically speaking as a union leader, I can't go to the bargaining table to get what my members deserve if there is nothing there to get," he said. "Productivity now is absolutely essential." He said that under the present plan the city services have taken a "severe battering" and that the city must now "realign its services with those cuts." situation. He showed strong leadership in helping to avoid default." Gotbaum warned that the city's present fiscal plan designed to cut between $800 million and $1 billion over the next 29 months is "unworkable" without increased productivity. Explains the Position "There are still a few labor leaders who don't understand this," Gotbaum said, "but we must set up an efficiency-productivity system in this city that is the envy of the rest of the nation." Such a plan, according to Got board of trustees of the Citizens Budget Commission, an unofficial watchdog group, criticized the governor more than once as failing to take a ''strong stand" in Washington on the welfare issue and as not pushing hard enough for increased state aid to the city.

Gotbaum described present federal and state aid formulas as "an outrageous scandal." Says Gov Has the Savvy In urging that Carey play a more positive roIe Gotbaum told the trustees that there "is no question that the governor has the ability to take hold of the.