Roll-your-own cigarette stores, including one in Camillus

A pack of name-brand cigarettes can run as high as $10 in New York state, and a carton about $80. In New York City, a pack can cost up to $14, and a carton $130.
In comparison, a pack of roll-your-own cigarettes can cost less than $4 in the state and a carton less than $30. With tightening budgets and a bad economy, more people are turning to roll-your-own machines in stores to get their cigarettes.

But $4 packs and $30 cartons might be short-lived. The fate of the roll-your-own machines in stores is up to the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, which is trying to determine whether those roll-your-own machines manufacture cigarettes. If the court determines that they do, a federal tax on each pack of roll-your-own cigarettes will be added, making those cigarettes similar in price to name-brand ones.
Jonathan Behrins, an attorney at the Behrins Law Firm in Staten Island, said he believes the decision will apply to local, state and federal laws. Behrins represents Island Smokes, a roll-your-own shop, in a New York City case. “People in the industry all over the nation are holding their breath to this decision,” Behrins said.
Roll-your-own stores sell the tobacco and empty cigarette tubes to customers, and the rolling machine is available for customer use, said a spokesperson for Tobacco Express, which has a store in Camillus. The customers roll the cigarettes themselves for their own personal use.
“When you go to the supermarket and the coffee section, you buy the beans and put it in the grinding machine, and it turns into coffee,” the spokesperson said. “It is the same thing we do.”