Rep. Black Faces Tough Crowd Over Roll-Your-Own Tobacco

Tennessee Congressman Diane Black got an earful from constituents Tuesday night about roll-your-own tobacco shops. About two-dozen people turned out for Black’s town-hall meeting in Lebanon.

Roll-your-own tobacco shops sidestep a higher tax on cigarettes by instead selling tobacco, and letting customers use a machine in the store to make cigarettes themselves. Last month Black introduced a bill to reclassify that as manufacturing (HR4134). Several shop owners like Ned Overton insisted that would kill jobs.

“You want to support small business and you want to support jobs. You’re going to put this girl out of a job, that girl out of a job, there are other people – you’ll put me out of work! You’ll put that man right there with his hand on his chin out of work. You’ll put that man in the blue shirt out of work.”

Black argues such businesses are unfair to competitors that pay the higher tax on cigarettes. One woman at the meeting also challenged Black for supporting a conservative budget proposal, while another called on her to protect defense spending from cuts. Asked about the tough crowd afterward, Black said “this is what town-halls are all about.”

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A similar bill (HB3606/SB3316) to make roll-your-own shops pay specific taxes is moving in Tennessee’s legislature. On Tuesday a Senate committee put off dealing with it for a second week in a row. On the House side it’s scheduled to go before the Finance committee Wednesday.