Posted on 07/04/2012 7:43:52 PM PDT by Graybeard58
For smokers who bargained on roll-your-own cigarette stores for cheap smokes, it looks like those days are numbered.
On Friday, President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law a federal highway bill with a section that redefines tobacco manufacturers to include any business with a roll-your-own cigarette machine and taxes those products at the same rate as packaged smokes.
The move comes a month after Illinois increased taxes on such roll-your-own machine-made cigarettes.
Marcia Smith, 47, of Lake County, decided after the state tax increase that she should move her Smokes & Such tobacco shops in Skokie and Gurnee to Wisconsin, where taxes on rolled cigarettes are lower.
If Obama signs the law, she said she’ll shut her doors.
The machines, which cost about $33,000 each, allow customers to pick their own tobacco and pour it into a device that can roll the tobacco into a carton, or about 200 cigarettes, within minutes.
This is Obama’s fault. Phillip Morris lobbied Max Baucus who slipped it in at the last minute and GhettoBama signed it.
Drudge title, FR hostile source.
Obama is putting more small businesses right out of work.
FUBO!
Well, Big Tobacco kicked Little Tobacco's (RYO) tail. They, and the convenience stores, were tired of losing market share.
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