NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Just weeks after it overwhelmingly passed in the state legislature, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signed into law a measure that requires retailers operating roll-your-own (RYO) machines to pay a licensing fee and to follow certain restrictions limiting the kind of tobacco that may be used.
Specifically, the legislation, which easily rode through both the state Senate and House, requires that the tobacco used in these machines be drawn from an approved list from the state attorney general's directory of tobaccos. Most telling is that pipe tobacco, commonly used in RYO because of its lower federal tax, is not listed among the approved products in the directory.
As reported earlier this month in Tobacco E-News and its sister e-publication, CSP Daily News (see Related Content below), Tennessee is among four states to recently pass RYO cigarette machine measure--the others being Oklahoma, Washington and Iowa.
Tennessee's new law requires RYO operators to pay a cigarette tax--albeit less than traditional pack cigarettes - and a $500 license fee per RYO machine. The measure, however, is not considered as muscular as some of those in the other states, which are pursuing tax equity between RYO store operators and retailers of traditional cigarettes.
"The Washington bill signed into law by the governor will level the playing field between RYO machine operators and traditional cigarette retailers by equalizing the tobacco tax paid by RYO store operators with the state's $3.02 per pack cigarette tax," Tom Briant, executive director for the National Association of Tobacco Outlets (NATO), recently told Tobacco E-News.
And the bill passed in Oklahoma goes a step further, actually banning use of commercial RYO machines except in age-restricted, adult-only facilities and requires the merchant to obtain a federal permit to operate as a cigarette manufacturer.
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