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April 26 , 2005

 

 

A Newsletter of the National Association of Tobacco Outlets, Inc.

By: Thomas A. Briant, Executive Director

April 2005                                                                                                Volume 5, No. 3

Taxes and Smoking Bans Dominate NATO Legislative Actions

NATO’s experienced and hard-working legislative staff has been helping retail and wholesale members oppose cigarette and tobacco tax increases in many of the 28 states and the District of Columbia that have pending tax increase bills. Some early NATO successes in fighting tax increases include defeating cigarette tax increase bills in Mississippi that would have raised taxes by as much as $1.00 per pack as well as increased the OTP tax. In addition, a New Mexico bill to raise the OTP tax from 25% to 40% failed.

A significant part of defeating cigarette and tobacco tax increases is the effort by NATO retailers to contact their legislators and testify before legislative committees. The testimony of NATO retail member Ben Spanjers of Saver Stop Store in LaCrescent, Minnesota and wholesale member Ross Amundson of Amundson Cigar and Candy Company in Bloomington, Minnesota helped defeat a proposed $1.00/pack cigarette tax hike. While final action has not been taken on Texas legislation to increase cigarette and OTP taxes, five NATO members publicly testified before a Texas legislative committee in opposition to the tax increases. These NATO retailers

 

included Roland Kuhn of Smokin’ J’s, Shon Ross of Nothin’ Butt Smokes, retailers from Tobacco Town and Tobacco Island stores and wholesale member Dean Stein of R.C. Taylor Wholesale.

Total statewide smoking bans are the latest strategy of the anti-tobacco advocates to further their agenda of prohibiting the use of tobacco products. With states potentially reaching a point of diminishing returns by further increases in cigarette and tobacco taxes, the number of states considering smoking bans has doubled this year to a high of eighteen, up from nine states in 2004. However, early results from NATO’s efforts to stop these smoking restrictions are positive.

On April 8th, The Virginia Senate voted to defeat a statewide smoking ban bill. A similar ban was defeated by a Minnesota House legislative committee in March. Moreover, smoking ban bills failed in Arkansas, Mississippi, Nebraska and New Mexico. Recently, lawmakers in Georgia amended a bill to allow smoking in bars and restaurants that do not allow persons under 18 to enter and Indiana legislators changed a smoking ban bill to allow for smoking sections in restaurants.

 

NATO Monitor/April 2005

NATO Expo Wrap Up

The 2005 NATO Conference and Expo held at the Las Vegas Convention Center from March 29-31, 2005 was the largest show in the Expo’s three year history. The focus of the 2005 NATO Conference and Expo was “Strategies for Sales Growth” and several thousand retailers attended the three day event. This year, the Expo included special seminars on selling premium cigars and using visual merchandising to market products.

The NATO Annual Meeting held at the Expo included the popular legislative panel. The panelists were: Frank Lester of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco on smoking restrictions, Craig Williamson of the Cigar Association of America on cigar issues, Bill Condon of Conwood Sales Company on self-service display bans, Fred Hoyt (a NATO retail member and former state legislator) on the importance of contacting elected officials and John Long of Liggett Vector Brands on Internet cigarette sales restriction laws. The theme for this year’s NATO Annual Meeting at the Expo was “Fighting for Tobacco Stores, Protecting the Industry.” NATO’s primary focus is to help tobacco stores fight to protect the right to sell tobacco products and the right of consumers to buy and use tobacco products.

 

2005 Pinnacle Award

Continuing the tradition of recognizing an individual who has demonstrated outstanding support of the tobacco store industry, Tom Trader of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company was awarded the 2005 NATO Pinnacle Award at the 2005 NATO Expo. Tom is currently the Director of Trade Relations at R.J. Reynolds and also served on the NATO Board of Directors from 2003-2004. The entire NATO organization extends its congratulations to Tom as the recipient of the Pinnacle Award.


  

NATO Monitor/April 2005
 

Credit Card Update

On Thursday, March 17, 2005, the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms announced a joint effort with state attorney generals and the major credit card companies informing cigarette website companies that they will no longer be allowed to accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express and other credit cards for the sale of cigarettes over the Internet. If a NATO retailer has received a notice from its credit card processor about termination of its credit card processing service for the sale cigars, pipe tobacco and smokeless tobacco products via mail order, catalog or website, the member should consider contacting Huntington Merchant Systems, the preferred credit card processing service for NATO members. HMS will analyze the retailer’s tobacco sales and work to offer credit card processing services to members that sell other tobacco products by mail order, catalog or website. Members should contact Shawna Anderson of HMS at 317-460-8288.

NATO E-News Bulletins

In NATO's ongoing effort to keep association members updated on recent tobacco legislative

  

issues and current tobacco news events, NATO is announcing the launch of the NATO E-News Bulletin. Each NATO member with an e-mail address will receive the NATO E-News every two weeks. NATO is working on contacting those NATO members for whom we do not have an e-mail address on file. If you have a new e-mail address or did not receive the bulletin, please call the NATO office toll-free at 1-866-869-8888 or send an e-mail with your e-mail address to info@natocentral.org.

Welcome New Members

New members that have recently joined NATO include American Western Cigar Company/House of Windsor, Bahia Cigars, B & W Wholesale Distribution, Caribe Imported Cigars, CAO International, Cherokee Tobacco Products, Cross Bridge, Don Salvatore Humidors/Buddy Products, General Tobacco, Heavenly Cigar Co., Indian Tabac Cigar Company, Home Folk’s Wholesale, Key Brands Marketing, Madelaine, Mike’s Cigars Distributors, Planet Imports, Santa Clara, Scents of Nature Enterprises, Tobacco Retailer Magazine and Tobaccobags.com.

 


  

NATO Monitor/April 2005

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