The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Local News

July 3, 2012

Business likely to go up in smoke

Roll-your-own shops hit hard by transportation bill rule change

By Tom Davidson Herald Staff Writer

MERCER COUNTY — For about a year, Meranda Myers has been able to smoke “too much” for about a third of the cost of commercial cigarettes.

They’re between $5 and $7 per pack in Mercer County and in these tight economic times it’s forced people like Myers to decide on a cheaper alternative.

The Greenville resident was a customer at Up In Smoke - RYO, a “roll-your-own” cigarette store owned by Dick Miller.

The place sells about 50 cartons a week to people who buy bagged pipe tobacco and empty cigarette tubes and sit down for a few minutes to operate a small, tabletop machine. It costs about $25 per carton (200 cigarettes) – well below the $60 or more people pay per carton to smoke Camels, Marlboros or Newports.

Myers was probably rolling her last carton at Up In Smoke Monday, as sometime this week President Barack Obama will essentially outlaw the practice by signing a transportation bill that includes an amendment that requires roll-your-own businesses to get manufacturing permits, place health warnings on packages and pay excise taxes on the cigarettes made by the machines.

“The intention was to put (us) out of business,” Miller, a local entrepreneur.

There’s a “50-50 chance” the law will put his store out of business, he said, although he’s also starting to generate other revenue at the downtown storefront from Internet “sweepstakes” machines that operate on the edge of state gambling laws.

Miller, a lifelong smoker himself who now chooses to puff on an electronic cigarette, claims the smokes rolled in his store are healthier than name-brand cigarettes. That’s a dubious claim, since cigarettes have been proven to cause cancer. Millions remain addicted to despite the health risk.

He claims that because the machine-rolled cigarette use pipe tobacco that doesn’t contain the additives mass market cigarettes are loaded with they are “healthier” than them. They’re are at least two studies that support his thesis, Miller said.

“It should be comforting to everybody that this amendment will add to the financial strength of Medicare,” Miller said.

“Now we won’t have to worry about the people smoking roll-your-owns living (long enough) to get on Medicare,” Miller said.

Getting the amendment attached to the legislation was a victory for “Big Tobacco,” Miller, a longtime Democrat activist, said.

It’s evidence that American government is being run by “Big Business” – the term Miller chose to use is oligarchy, government “of the few.”

He dismissed conservative complains of a rising tide of socialism.

“We’re about as socialist at that chair,” Miller said. “Big Business is running the country.”

And it’s running his business, and other small operations, out-of-business.

“There’s a better than even chance we’ll close this business,” he said of Up In Smoke.

Other roll-your-own stores in Mercer County, including Tightwad Tobacco’s Hermitage location and Icabod’s Smoke Shop in Brookfield, declined comment for this story.

The law takes effect immediately after Obama signs the bill, Miller said, adding he has “no choice” but to comply because it involves taxes and “you can’t fight the IRS.”

Text Only
Local News
  • ARD ordered for women in coupon fraud case

    Two Erie-area woman charged in a coupon fraud scheme have been entered into the probation-like Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program.

    June 19, 2013

  • Man pleads guilty to molesting girl

    A Hempfield Township man accused of molesting a 12-year-old mildly autistic girl pleaded guilty Monday to charges of attempted aggravated indecent assault and indecent assault.

    June 19, 2013

  • Attempted homicide withdrawn

    A Farrell man jailed for stabbing another was released on parole Tuesday with prosecutors agreeing that his version of events was closer to the truth than the victim’s.

    June 19, 2013

  • weidner, josh Rare disease causing kidney failure

    With no idea what happened, 20-year-old Josh Weidner of Pymatuning Township has found himself going to dialysis three times a week, instead of the college class he planned, and is about a year into an 18-month or longer wait for a life-saving kidney transplant.

    June 19, 2013 1 Photo

  • 1 killed in 2-vehicle crash

    A 73-year-old Sharon woman was killed Monday afternoon when the SUV in which she was riding was hit broadside at state routes 7 and 82 in Brookfield, according to Ohio Highway Patrol.

    June 18, 2013

  • Grim scene 2 killed in morning blaze

    Two people are dead after an early-morning fire in Grove City. The fire at about 3:15 a.m. Monday apparently killed a man and a woman inside the house at 432 McConnell St., police said.

    June 18, 2013 1 Photo

  • Man jumped in Sharon, stabs one of his attackers

    The intended victim of an early-morning robbery stabbed one of his attackers just after 5 a.m. Monday on Jennyburg Hill in Sharon. Four men looking for money confronted the 20-year-old man who was walking along Prindle Street near Walnut Street above the Shenango Valley Freeway, police Chief Mike Menster said.

    June 18, 2013

  • Adams-King resigns post

    Sharon City School Board on Monday accepted the resignation of the Rev. Lora Adams-King as a school board member effective immediately.

    June 18, 2013

  • Argenziano: I’m guilty

    The man accused of a savage June 7, 2012, attack on a Sharon woman that left her dead pleaded guilty Monday to third-degree murder charges.

    June 18, 2013

  • Paving of 3 streets approved

    New Wilmington will replace the municipal building roof and pave three streets this summer.
    Council awarded a $42,312 contract for the roof job to CBF Contracting of Sligo, Pa. CBF was the third-lowest bidder, but was the lowest bidder that met all requirements, according to Larry Wagner, council president.

    June 17, 2013