RYO Cigarette Stores Business End Soon

The “roll-your-own” machines at Holy Smokes in La Crosse will continue to crank out cigarettes for now, but their days likely are numbered. The $105 billion federal transportation bill that passed Friday included an amendment reclassifying businesses with the machines as tobacco manufacturers, which would require that they obtain permits, put health warnings on packs and pay taxes on the cigarettes made. “When it slipped in, no one even knew about it,” said Craig Squires, co-owner of La Crosse’s two Holy Smokes shops. “Shutting us down is one little paragraph.”

Cheap Cigarette Machines Warnings

Trading Standards officers will crackdown on pubs selling cheap Chesterfield cigarettes from vending machines from October 1.

It becomes illegal to sell tobacco in public areas in pubs and bars from next month.

Trading Standards officers have pledged to carry out spot checks throughout Coventry and Warwickshire and publicans found to have an operating vending machine could face fines and prosecution.

City councillor Joe Clifford, chairman of Coventry’s Smokefree Alliance, said: “For far too long cigarette vending machines have provided an easy and unsupervised route for young people to get hold of tobacco.

“Getting rid of tobacco from these machines will help to make cigarettes less accessible to children and will play a role in encouraging young people to choose not to start smoking in the first place.”