For anyone that's interested, I just got a check from the State of New York, refunding the sales tax I paid on the cycling gloves. Apparently they classify the gloves as clothing, and clothing is not subject to NYS sales tax.

The store in question is Gotham Bikes, and if the above is correct, then they've been overcharging their clients for no good reason (although I think it's probably ineptitude/a mistake rather than fraud, because there's no great benefit to them). I'll be contacting the store manager/accountant in due course, and throwing in the detail about the clerk being snotty about it while I'm at it.