I quit smoking back in 2004 or 2005. We called it "packing" the cigarettes and we didn't tap them. Before removing the plastic, would smack the top side of the pack pretty hard against the palm of the other hand 10-20 times and there was a fairly sizeable difference between packed and unpacked cigarettes. When packed, there was a gap between the end of the paper and where the tobacco started
The reason for it was that the smoldering tip (the cherry) of the cigarette had a greater chance of falling off the cigarette completely when tapping the ashes off if the cigarette was unpacked. Didn't have that issue with well packed cigs