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Smoking ban hits tax till

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The drive by West Virginia bar owners to protect their businesses from the smoking ban has taken a hit from the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., maker of Winston cigarettes.

Kerry "Paco" Ellison, owner of the Blackhawk Saloon in Charleston, took the double blow after resisting the ban for more than a year and becoming prominent statewide in the movement by bar owners.

Reynolds charged Ellison with using an inflatable balloon of a pack of Winston cigarettes to the detriment of the company by promoting "unlawful smoker rights and to encourage patrons of your bar to violate the county's smoking ban."

Ellison told Gazette staff writer Eric Eyre, "It just baffles me that no matter what I do, somebody goes and gets a bigger dog. At this point the fight continues."

But since then, he has had second thoughts about continuing to defy the smoking ban by offering special nights for smoking in the bar. Yet no decision to move the giant Winston sign ballooned at the front of the place, though the lettering has been revised with duct tape.

"Winston" has been replaced on the pack with the words, "Win with us." Ellison said, "I don't think it's violating anything."

I said recently here that the national smoke ban was paving the way for a tobacco black market, recalling the prohibition era when liquor sold tax-free in West Virginia and sister states.

The liquor was called "moonshine" and "white lightning." But by any other name, sales and distribution flowed. Gangsters like Al Capone controlled a big piece of the action.

Media reports of late said a court order didn't stop the brisk sales of tax-free cigarettes at the Poospatuck Indian Reservation on New York's Long Island. It might be expected since a pack of cigarettes in New York City costs $6.35, the highest yet in the nation.

The situation recalls a similar problem with gambling casinos and a threat to the tax till. From New England to New Mexico, hotel owners with casinos rose in protest against the spread of casinos on Indian reservations. Real estate mogul Donald Trump pitched a fit.

Cooling tempers and fixing the problem, for the most part, seem tame by comparison with the trouble looming for states and the federal government over the cigarette black market.

Indian leaders on reservations have a past to look to with some guidance for the future. Black market operators seek no such rapport with civil authorities for a solution. They want to do business tax-free.

There seems no end or letup to the drive in state and nation for a smoke-free society. Yet the smoking problem pales by comparison with others such as global warming and health-care coverage for uninsured West Virginians and other Americans.

Most West Virginians don't smoke, nor most of the rest of the American population. They never did. But smoking is an easy prey for fear of death, manipulation by zealots and a field day for commercial hustlers in and out of health-care services.

The risk of smoking to one's health has become loaded with the multibillion-dollar national settlement by R.J. Reynolds and other members of Big Tobacco. West Virginia was among the 47 states included in the settlement.

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