Cheap cigarettes line

Online firm to end sale of smokes in the state

February 11, 2004 - An online cigarette cheap cigarettes online store retailer agreed yesterday to stop peddling smokes in California to settle a lawsuit state Attorney General William Lockyer filed last April.
Virginia-based E-Commerce Today is the only one of six online cigarette retailers to settle with the state after being accused of selling tobacco to minors and failing to pay state taxes of about $9 a carton.
Under the settlement agreement filed yesterday afternoon in Superior Court in cheap cigarettes online store San Diego, E-Commerce must reject all sales orders from California, refuse shipment to California addresses, adopt procedures to avoid selling tobacco to minors and state these policies on its Web site. The company and its operator, Paul D. Hayes, must also jointly pay $4,000 in civil penalties and $8,000 to reimburse the state for investigative costs.
The settlement terms are subject to a judge's cheap cigarettes online store approval.

E-Commerce is the smallest of the six out-of-state cheap cigarettes online store retailers Lockyer filed lawsuits against, claiming "they have helped hook our children on a deadly addictive product" while depriving the state of revenue during a budget crisis. State tax officials estimate that California cheap cigarettes online store loses nearly $55 million a year to online cigarette retailers.
The E-Commerce Web site yesterday showed premium brand cigarettes available for cheap cigarettes online store between $26.50 and $32 a carton. The online prices do not include the $9 in state sales tax.

The lawsuit charged the companies with cheap cigarettes online store violating the federal Jenkins Act, which requires companies that ship cigarettes across state lines to keep records of the sale for the buyer's home state, thus allowing cheap cigarettes online store the state to collect taxes. The companies were also accused of violating a California law that requires them to put labels on containers informing the customer that state tax is owed.
Also named in the lawsuits were Missouri-based Dirt Cheap Cigarettes, Smokin 4 Less of Virginia, Cyco.net Inc of New Mexico, eSmokes of Florida and LLP Enterprises/CigOutlet of Virginia. The lawsuits are still cheap cigarettes online store proceeding against the other companies, said Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for Lockyer.
When Lockyer filed the lawsuits he said he hoped to collect $1 million from the six companies combined.
"The main goal of this was not to extract money from these companies, but to keep the product out cheap cigarettes online store of the hands of our kids," Dresslar said. "We got our main objective accomplished with regard to this company not selling to kids in California

NEW YORK -- New York files a lawsuit cheap cigarettes online store Friday against a group of online sellers of cigarettes.
City lawyers claim the retailers are shipping tobacco products into the city in violation of city health regulations.
In a complaint filed in U.S. District court in Manhattan, they argued that cheap cigarettes online store Internet sites shipping cigarettes to New York City residents amounted to a public nuisance.

The lawsuit seeks to bar the Web sites from cheap cigarettes online store making any further shipments.
Earlier this year, the city sued a different group of Internet cigarette dealers in January for cheap cigarettes online store evading tobacco sales taxes. That case is pending in federal court.