Chain Says ‘Sign Here’ For Cheaper Cigarettes Liability Waiver Is Key To Smoke Shops’ Success

Buying low-cost smokes is easy at one local cigarette discounter as long as you don’t mind signing away your right to sue if you get lung cancer or emphysema.

Cigarettes Cheaper! - which has two stores in the Spokane Valley and another in Coeur d’Alene - sells its company brands of cigarettes for as much as $2 a pack less than national brands cost at other stores. But to buy them, smokers must sign a waiver acknowledging the health risks of smoking and agreeing not to make any claims against the store.

This weekend, the chain is opening 50 stores nationwide, including one on Sprague in the Spokane Valley. The major expansion comes just two weeks after a $145 billion jury award in Florida against the country’s five biggest cigarette manufacturers.

Since the chain’s brands are new, spokesman Ned Roscoe said, they don’t have the same liability problems as store brands that have been on the shelf since the days when people were not as aware of smoking’s health risks.

“The idea that people don’t know the negative effects of smoking is far-fetched,” he said. “It’s ridiculous.”

Waivers are not required to buy name-brand smokes, but customers who sign a release are issued an ID card and can buy the store’s own, cheaper brands such as Geronimo, Bandito, Noble, Peace and Natural Harvest.

The company brands, made in Europe, account for 6 percent of sales, Roscoe said.

Though the chain’s liability waivers have apparently not yet been tested in court, their legitimacy is debatable, one local attorney said.

“Washington courts are very vigilant to ensure that releases and waivers are not misused to perpetuate public health and safety problems,” said Darrell Scott, an attorney with Lukins & Annis. He added, however, that anyone who signs such a waiver would be confronted with it in court if they ever did sue.

Lawyers at the Washington state attorney general’s office were reluctant to speculate about the cigarette seller’s particular waiver, but they were skeptical such a waiver would insulate the company from potential liability.

Roscoe said the waiver is a way to keep prices lower because the chain doesn’t have to worry about large judgments.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, rising prices on cigarettes because of higher taxes and settlement costs in addition to increased awareness of the health risks of smoking have caused a nationwide decline in smoking.

Prices have risen 80 percent the past two years, and the number of cigarettes sold per capita in the United States last year was 8 percent less than in 1998.

Rising prices have opened the door for discount smoke shops.

Cigarettes Cheaper! has opened its Inland Northwest stores over the past nine months. Nationwide, the tobacco chain operates 730 outlets, mostly in strip malls.

On average, each store sells 10,000 packs of cigarettes a week. Prices on popular brands are $3-$3.50 a pack - about $1 less on average than at many grocery stores. House brands cost from $2.38 to $2.48 a pack.

Roscoe said the chain is good for Washington smokers because cigarette taxes are higher than in Idaho.

“Not everybody has the time to drive to Idaho every day when they need a pack of cigarettes,” he said.

Several North Idaho smoke shops, however, said they haven’t seen a decline in business since Cigarettes Cheaper! moved into the market. On Thursday, one shop was selling Marlboros for 30 cents less per pack than the discount chain.

The private company was started in 1994. Founder John Roscoe, who owned a chain of California mini-marts, was walking on the beach in St. Barts in the Caribbean with Phillip Morris chief executive Michael Szymanczyk when the two discussed starting a chain of discount smoke shops.

Though Phillip Morris has no ownership in the company (it’s owned by the Roscoe family), the stores sell a lot of Phillip Morris products.

In fact, this weekend’s massive opening is timed to coincide with a sale on the tobacco company’s most popular brand.

“The price of Marlboros goes down on Saturday,” said Ned Roscoe, the founder’s son. “It’s easier to get a store going when that’s on sale.”

Roscoe added, “We used to say that the scandal of cigarettes wasn’t that they killed you, it was the price gouging.”

Cigarettes Cheaper!, of course, is a strong advocate for smokers’ rights.

A message on the company’s Web site reads: “Life is Terminal … CONSIDER SMOKING!”

Another page at the Web site lists reasons to smoke and to not smoke, including skepticism about the government’s health-risk findings, and “Smoking shows people you are your own boss.”