Kjellquist Blog

Ok, I smoke an occasional cigar. But Prince George’s County, MD has definitely gone off the deep end! No, they haven’t jumped on the tax-to-death or ban-everywhere band wagons; rather they mandate the number you must buy!
In November 2008 the county council passed an ordinance banning the legal (over age 18) sale of a single cigar. You must buy 5 cigars at a time! Don’t believe me, here is the Washington Post article. BTW, this is a county with a 2008 median household income of $71,696.

Tobacco stores that specialize in cigar sales, and often sell high-end cigars for as much as $5 apiece or more, are excluded from the legislation’s restrictions, as are other locations that are sometimes age-restricted, including golf courses, fraternal lodges, bars and restaurants.

Of course, the ordinance didn’t go unchallenged. Just this pass month Circuit Court Judge Sean Wallace ruled the law constitutional! I guess the legal definition of constitutional doesn’t include logical or effective!
The logic, if you can call it that, is to  “curb a growing trend among urban youths of using hollowed-out cigars to smoke marijuana.” The other goal is to “make it easier to charge someone possessing a cigar with a drug paraphernalia offense.”
An astute observation by a tobacco product distributor seems to summarize the obvious response to the law. He suggested that it would simply create a cottage industry of people who buy five packs and then sell them individually!
Everyone in MD should standby as the proponents of the Prince George’s ordinance are looking for a state law.

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