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Tobacco Tax Hike Rocks Roll-Your-Own Smokes Biz

Tribune photo by LAURA FRAZIER

Santiago Carrasco, store manager of the Tobacco Depot in Valrico, said the increase will make it impossible for customers who roll their own cigarettes to save money, and the store will likely discontinue the sale of bags of tobacco and rolling paraphernalia next month.

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By LAURA FRAZIER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 20, 2009

VALRICO - When the price of gasoline burned holes in the wallets of weary consumers last summer, one money-saving option for cash-strapped smokers caught on like wildfire.

Santiago Carrasco, store manager of Tobacco Depot on Bloomingdale Avenue, said that about the time gas hit $4 a gallon, smokers with pipe dreams about saving a few bucks came in packs to his store to ask how – and how much it would cost - to roll their own cigarettes.

"Our one-pound bags of tobacco sold, at the time, for about $12," Carrasco said Monday at the shop. "The mathematics were something beautiful. It all worked out to about $8 a carton."

The store has a roll-your-own section with a variety of tobaccos, paper tubes with or without filters, and inexpensive rolling machines for sale. Customers can also use the store's machine for free to roll their smokes.

But the do-it-yourself department that has been positively smokin' for some eight months is about to be extinguished, he said. An enormous price increase in conjunction with the federal excise tax that takes effect April 1 has already begun to snuff it out.

Signs posted at the store warn customers that one-pound bags of tobacco – now $17.49 each – will cost $67.49 a bag or more after the tax and new wholesale and retail markups are tacked on. That translates to more than $20 to roll your own carton.

"That's why Big Tobacco got behind this tax," Carrasco said. "It forces the roll-your-own consumers back to buying their product."

The only way a smoker can save money now is to decide to quit, cut back or go with a bottom-of-the-barrel budget brand that sells per carton for about $20 plus sales tax.

"Now I have to close my entire roll-your-own section," he said.

The price hike is also bad news for the farmer in Kentucky that Carrasco buys tobacco from.

"He will be out of business," he said.

The excise tax is an extension and expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which was signed into law Feb. 4 by President Barack Obama. The tax is expected to provide an additional $32.8 billion over the next 4½ years to provide health care for an additional 4 million children. The program will be financed through an increase in federal tobacco taxes, including a 62 cents-per-pack increase on cigarettes.

Reporter Laura Frazier can be reached at (813) 657-4523.

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