Cigar lover Dick DiAndrea doesn't mind paying for a good smoke.
"I will smoke cigars regardless of what they cost," the Altoona man said while puffing on a $6 cigar at Havana Daydreaming last week.
He said a good cigar for him costs about $2.50, and he buys his cigars by the box.
The cost of a good stogie may be going up again.
Taxes and laws are not new to the tobacco industry, but more changes are in the works.
One state budget proposal includes a plan to tax cigars and smokeless tobacco. Pennsylvania is the only U.S. state without such a tax, the governor's office stated in a 2009-10 budget overview.
Blair Candy Co. co-owner Pat Dandrea, whose Altoona business also sells tobacco products, said taxing such items has a limit.
"Eventually the cash cow will go away," he said. "You can only tax it so far."
He said he doesn't claim smoking is healthy, but he thinks for fairness sake, everyone should get taxed.
"Cigarettes are an easy thing because nobody is supposed to want to have them," he said.
The other major changes began after President Barack Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act into law in June. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, now in charge of regulating the tobacco industry, started making changes to packaging and has plans to make even more.
Dandrea said photographs of babies with birth defects will start appearing on packs as a warning to the affects of smoking while pregnant.
A manager at Nic's Tobacco Outlet at 3101 Pleasant Valley Blvd. said as of Sept. 1, the store can no longer sell flavored cocktail cigarettes which come in cherry, chocolate and vanilla flavors.
The flavored smokes are "really good sellers," Donna Laich said.
Packaging on Pall Malls has already changed. The pack reads "blue" where it once read "light," Laich said.
By July 2010, the words "light," "low" and "mild" will not be allowed to appear on packs unless approved, the FDA said on its Web site. Package warnings will cover up to 50 percent of the package and will have larger print.
Any cigarettes that taste like anything other than menthol will be outlawed, Dandrea said.
Cigars and other tobacco products increased in price after the president signed The Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 into law in February.
Small cigars - weighing three pounds or less per 1,000 - were taxed about $48 more per 1,000 in April, according to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau Web site. Taxes for large cigars - weighing more than three pounds per 1,000 - increased more than 30 percent from March to April with taxes not to exceed about 40 cents a cigar.
DiAndrea said he worries for local businesses because, in the face of taxes, the part-time cigar smokers may snub the once in a while butt for good, causing a drop in sales.
