Carlson: Indeed, cigarette sales went south (to Missouri)

Eagleville, Mo. — The guy tossing a dozen cartons of Winstons into the trunk of the car with the Polk County license plates looked stricken, as if he'd been accused of being an al-Qaida terrorist. "I'm not taking the Cigarettes home," he said, immediately realizing it was a ridiculous statement. Then he fessed up. "I come down to Missouri for Cigarettes about once a month," he said, after getting a promise the license plate of his red Taurus would not be turned over to the authorities. "I'm a smoker, and I'm not quitting. What can I say? I can't afford not to come down here." The man, whose identify we're protecting because he violated the law the second his Ford crossed back into Iowa, was buying Cigarettes for himself and two friends from work. They had pooled their money and spent $300 for the 12 cartons here in Missouri. In Iowa, the Cigarettes would have cost $500. "Even spending $18 or $20 for gas, it's a no-brainer," said the Iowan. "We're going to keep doing it, too." He was speaking the day after Iowa politicians were gloating over a report that showed cigarette sales in Iowa have dropped 36 percent in the year since the per-pack state tax went up $1. The drop in Iowa sales was almost universally attributed to the new law, which raised the cigarette tax to $1.36, among the highest in the nation. There's no doubt some Iowans are giving up the habit, and the tax increase is surely a big part of the reason. But Missouri's tax is 17 cents a pack, and people here — particularly those who sell Cigarettes a few miles south of the Iowa border — think there's another reason Iowa's sales are down. "We sell hundreds of cartons of Cigarettes to people from Iowa, and we love it," said Jo Hulet, manager of Sharp's BP convenience store in Bethany, Mo. "Listen, I'm a big follower of rules. But the Iowa law was made to be broken. People are going to smoke. Period. And they're going to stop at a place like this if they can save $10 or $12 or $15 a carton." It is illegal to bring More than two packs of Cigarettes into Iowa. Iowans convicted of bringing between two packs and two cartons of Cigarettes into the state face a $200 fine. It's a $500 fine for bringing in between two and 10 cartons. More than 10 cartons and the fine is $25 a pack, making the fine for 11 cartons $2,750. And there has been little, if any, interest in enforcing the law. "The State Patrol's position is, if a trooper in the normal course of his duties encounters a person believed to be bootlegging Cigarettes, enforcement action would be taken," said James Saunders, spokesman for the Iowa Department of Public Safety. That means charges would be filed if an officer stopped an Iowan for speeding and found a lot of Cigarettes with Missouri tax stamps. It also means troopers are not looking specifically for people violating the law. Herbert Muir, sheriff of Decatur County, Ia., which is just north of the Missouri outlets along Interstate Highway 35, said: "We've heard stories about people going down there, buying Cigarettes and coming back and selling them out of their cars. We haven't been able to prove it. We have a limited number of officers, so it's not practical to go out specifically looking for people bringing in Cigarettes." There's no way to know exactly how many Cigarettes are sold to Iowans in Missouri. All information is anecdotal, but the stories are impressive. "Be here on a Friday or Saturday night," said Hulet. "We did two $600 orders last Friday, and those are just two that I know of." Carolyn Hulett is the manager of the Kum & Go store on Interstate 35, just outside of Lamoni. That's four miles from the Missouri border and 11 miles from Eagleville. She pulled one carton off the shelf — it was $40.30 — and another brand she's trying to sell is priced at $43. "Forget it," she said. "We have them, but we never sell a full carton anyMore. Maybe a pack once in a while to hold somebody over until they can get down to Missouri. But that's it." It's the same with the Casey's store in Lamoni, where the cigarette rack is half the size of the one there a year ago. The fact is, cigarette sales drop the farther south you go in Iowa. But the license plates on the Iowa cars in the parking lots of the Missouri stores show they are not just from the southern tier of counties. Cars from Polk, Marshall, Story and Webster counties were in the parking lots at stores in Eagleville and Bethany. A woman from Winterset was buying Cigarettes for three co-workers. "I'd been to Kansas City, and my friends gave me money to stop on the way back and buy them Cigarettes," she said. "I don't smoke, but I was happy to do it because they can save so much money." The key here is the Interstate highway. Cartons of Cigarettes are being sold to people from Minnesota, where the tax is $1.23 a pack, and from Wisconsin, where the tax is $1.77 a pack. A worker at the Bethany BP station said a man from Minnesota stopped last week and bought every carton of nonfilter Cigarettes in the store. There was talk the rush of sales to Iowans might taper off a bit a few months after the tax increased a year ago, but that may not be the case. "The only time we've seen any tapering off is when the roads were bad," said Hulet. David Fuller of Leon teaches high school science in Missouri and was astounded at how Iowa public officials credited the 36 percent drop in cigarette sales to people quitting the habit. "I stop at a convenience store on the Missouri side almost every day, and they're making a bundle selling Cigarettes to Iowans," he said. "They've expanded the size of the store because of Cigarettes." Fuller even wrote to Gov. Chet Culver explaining what he sees every day: "... I can tell you for a fact that there are cars in that store buying, from lists, $300, $400, $500's worth of Cigarettes at a time," Fuller wrote. "Nobody buys that many Cigarettes, from a list, unless they are buying them for lots of other people. These cars all have Iowa tags, Polk County, Black Hawk County, Johnson County, etc. Get the picture. If you think that bringing fireworks into Iowa is a problem, then this is 365 times as big a problem because it happens everyday of the year." Hulet walked into the Bethany store's backroom for a minute and came back with a Christmas card sent to her by an Iowa family. The Iowa couple who sent it thanked her for taking care of their cigarette needs and promised to stop by the store once a month. "They're very nice people," Hulet said. "I have a lot of customers from Iowa just like them. If they tell us what they want and let us know they're coming, we'll get as many Cigarettes as they want and have them ready." Two store managers, who didn't want to be named, said their cigarette sales have doubled since the Iowa law was implemented last March. Hulet is not saying exactly how much her business has increased, but she hopes the law stays in force and she meets lots More Iowans. "The people who make the laws up there aren't playing with a full deck," she said bluntly. "But I love people from Iowa, and I'm happy to take their money," she said. "I hope the state of Iowa banishes alcohol next. I'd love to increase my liquor and beer sales." Columnist John Carlson can be reached at (515) 284-8204 or jcarlson@dmreg.com