Federal law snuffs out cigarette-rolling venture

Bruce Hendren's roll-your-own cigarette machine at Roll On Premium Smokes might have rolled its last one. It now sits idle, the result of a provision in the federal highway bill signed into law last week that classified merchants like him as manufacturers. "That's one of the most confusing things to us is what a retail mom-and-pop store has to do with the federal highway bill except that Big Tobacco has big pockets," said Hendren, who opened his store at 1203 E. Broadway a year ago. "I'm sure with nearly 600 pages, there's a lot of other crap in there that doesn't have a lot to do with transportation."

Because of the legislation, stores such as Hendren's, which let customers roll their own cigarettes, now must face the same regulations and taxes that big cigarette manufacturers do. Previously, customers could come in, pick their tobacco blend and roll hundreds of cigarettes. They avoided the per-pack state and federal cigarette taxes, and Hendren paid the lower pipe tobacco tax rate. Now, Hendren would be subject to the same health-warning labeling requirements as Big Tobacco, and he has to get permits to operate the machine. But even if he wanted to, he couldn't.

The agency responsible for administering and collecting cigarette taxes, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, announced on its website this week that "because of pending litigation, TTB is not currently processing applications" for operating permits. "They changed the rules of the game, and we can't play by the rules because they haven't put any rules out there for us," Hendren said. However, he is holding out hope that the lawsuit from the country's roll-your-own cigarette operators might put an injunction on the law. "I'm a small, single-machine shop; there's 32 stores in the state equaling about 42 machines; and there's about 1,000 stores in the country equaling about 1,800 machines, I think," Hendren said. "So we think our best fight right now is together."

The permitting rules and the labeling are what Hendren thinks would be the most difficult provisions to comply with. Charging cigarette taxes wouldn't be that big of an issue, he said. "I don't even think the price is the biggest determining factor for most people after they've tried it," he said of his product. "They just like it." In the meantime, Hendren is relying on sales of hand-held cigarette rollers, e-cigarettes and loose tobacco. He's cut back his employees' hours from about 60 to eight a week. Lots of customers came in last week to stock up before the new law took effect, but things are slow now. If a judge doesn't grant an injunction, can he survive as a discount smoke shop? "If that's what it comes down to, I'm going to put as much effort into that as I can," he said.