Law forcing roll-your-own cigarette shops to close

The days of discounted smokes are over for those who flocked to roll-your-own tobacco shops for cheap cigarettes. An amendment buried in the federal transportation bill signed Friday by President Barack Obama is causing roll-your-own cigarette shops to struggle and consider closing across the country, including South Florida. So those who avoided the pricey packaged cigarettes by buying at roll-your-own shops are out of luck. The law redefines tobacco manufacturers to include businesses that use machines to roll cigarettes.

This means the law will tax the tobacco products at the same rate of packaged cigarettes, treating the roll-your-own tobacco shops the same as much larger manufacturers like Marlboro and Camel silver. Roll your own cigarette shops offer just that — commercial machines that take loose tobacco and roll them into cigarettes in just a few minutes. The shops sell all the parts to make a cigarette — the loose tobacco, tubes and filters. "This new law will place roll-your-own shops on a level playing field with retailers that sell traditionally manufactured cigarettes," said Thomas Briant, executive director with the National Association of Tobacco Outlets.

"Before this change in the law was enacted Friday, roll-your-own machine operators were operating under a competitive advantage." The interest in roll-your-own smokes has grown since 2009 after a federal excise tax on tobacco rose dramatically, affecting the price of packaged cigarettes. Roll-your-own shops use loose pipe tobacco, which was less affected by the tax hike. David Fiore, owner of Double D's Tobacco, which has seven Palm Beach County locations, stopped using his rolling machines Friday. The machines roll a carton of cigarettes in less than 10 minutes, he said. "This bill is going to put a lot of people out of work," Fiore said. "And now there's going to be even more empty retail space in shopping centers."

 Fiore said he plans to shut down his East Boca store off Boca Raton Boulevard. Without the rolling services, he said, the store won't continue to be profitable. In order for roll-your-own shops to continue using the machines, owners must obtain a manufacturer's permit, file a bond, pay the applicable federal cigarette tax rate, keep records, print required markings on packages used for manufactured cigarettes, affix the U.S. Surgeon General's warning labels to packages and comply with theU.S.

Food and Drug Administration'sminimum cigarette package size, Briant said. Big tobacco companies and some convenience stores lobbied for the legislation. Several states, including Virginia, South Dakota and Wyoming, have similar bills on the state level. "We can't compete with that; our store is only 800 square feet," said Scott Archer, owner of Ciggy Mart, a roll-your-own shop in Palmetto Bay.