NYC Forces "Roll Your Own Cigarette" Store To Close For Tax Purposes
New York City forced a business that allows you to roll your own cigarettes with loose tobacco to close due to tax reasons. The business allowed you to avoid paying cigarette taxes, which are upwards of $6 per pack in the city, by rolling your own cigarettes with a less-taxed product of loose tobacco.
The company was charging around $4 a pack to roll your own cigarettes. A pack of premium cigarettes in New York City can range from $11 to $15.
New York City's Law Department announced that Island Smokes, which had two tobacco shops in the city and was based on Staten Island, would shut down Feb. 1 in order to resolve a lawsuit filed in late November.
A lawyer for the company said it would have been too expensive to fight the case.
"It really was a business decision. It's the old adage that you can't fight City Hall," said the attorney, Jonathan Behrins. "From a lawyer's perspective, it was a very winnable case, and something I would have loved to take on. But fighting it alone against an army of lawyers and unlimited funds ... the prospects were not that good."
Island Smokes was one of a number of "roll-your-own" shops that have opened up across the country in recent years to take advantage of a perceived loophole in state and federal tax laws.
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