Author: Staff Writer

Altria’s board of directors yesterday declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.44 per common share, payable on July 10 to shareholders of record as of June 14.

The ex-dividend date is June 12.

Net sales by the US-based electronic cigarette company, Vapor Corp, during the three months to the end of March, at about $6.4 million, were increased by $1.5 million or 31.1 per cent on those of the three months to the end of March 2012.

“The first quarter of 2013 was marked by continued sales growth, a return to profitability and an increase in working capital,” said CEO, Kevin Frija.

“These financial results are very encouraging; especially as we embark on the continued expansion of our soft tip filters and Krave King product line.
“Demand for our products remains strong and interest in our Krave King is expanding.

“We remain committed to investing in the long-term growth of the company and its brands as well as gaining greater brand awareness among the vaping community and investors.

“Quality, value and thoughtful innovation and improvements in product, such as our soft-tip filters, set us apart from the competition and allows us to get more products into the hands of more customers, and leads to more repeat customers.”

A US county’s board of health has used part of the money handed to it under the Centers for Disease Control program, Communities Putting Prevention to Work, to conduct a focus group of exotic dancers.

According to Jim Galloway’s Political Insider column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, referencing the Georgia Tipsheet, the website, Cause of Action, said the DeKalb County Board of Health, Georgia, had used some of the funds it received ‘to support the adoption of a strengthened county clean indoor air ordinance’.

The website, which calls itself a ‘nonprofit, nonpartisan government accountability organization that fights to protect economic opportunity’, recently posted its investigation of the money handed out by the Centers for Disease Control program.

‘When participants were asked if they had the opportunity to work in an establishment where smoking was restricted, would they do so, only two stated they would,’ the website was quoted as saying.’ One of these two stated she would even if it meant a decrease in her current income. The others stated they would not. When asked for justification, one participant stated that working in a smoke-free adult entertainment establishment was not a reality. Another participant noted that restricting the ability to smoke in these environments would ultimately impact income.”

Galloway concluded that strippers were fiscal conservatives.

A shop owner in Boston, Lincolnshire, has been found guilty of intentionally selling ‘dangerous’ cigarettes in the first case of its kind in the UK, according to a story in the Boston Standard.

The man, who was found guilty at Boston Magistrates’ Court of eight offences, including the sale of non self-extinguishing cigarettes, was ordered to carry out 270 hours of unpaid community work during the next 12 months. He was also ordered to pay the £5,176 costs of Lincolnshire Trading Standards, which brought the prosecution.

Since November 2011, all cigarettes sold in the UK have had to comply with EU standards that require them to be self-extinguishing.

The senior trading standards officer at Lincolnshire Trading Standards, Emma Milligan, was quoted as saying that the man had been in possession of almost 1,000 Jin Ling cigarettes, “which were of particular concern to us”.

“Jin Ling is an illicit brand of cigarette not made to European standards and therefore illegal in Europe,” Milligan said.

“We believe that this type of cigarette caused a local house fire in Spalding in which one person died, and during the course of the inquest the Coroner raised serious concerns about the sale of illegal cigarettes in the area, hence why we have been cracking down on sales of this product.”

Jimmy Hill has been elected chairman of the board at the US Tobacco Co-operative (USTC) in succession to Albert Johnson, who had served as chairman since 2005.

USTC, which is said to be the largest tobacco co-operative in the US, has more than 900 member growers in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. It contracts, buys, processes and markets flue-cured tobacco. In 2010, it was named North Carolina’s Exporter of the Year.

Hill has been a member of USTC’s board for more than 20 years.

He has extensive farming experience, has worked for two multinational tobacco companies, and lived and worked in South America for 10 years.

US tobacco manufacturers have notched up a significant courtroom victory.

According to a note posted on Altria’s website, a unanimous West Virginia jury yesterday rejected all but one of the plaintiffs’ claims in a consolidated trial involving about 600 individual lawsuits against the major tobacco companies.

In reaching its decision, the jury also rejected the plaintiffs’ claim for punitive damages.

Yesterday’s decision did not establish any liability against any of the defendants or award any monetary damages.

“We believe that the jury appropriately rejected the plaintiffs’ claims for design defect, negligence, failure to warn, breach of warranty, and concealment and refused to find that any of PM USA’s conduct warranted punitive damages,” said Murray Garnick, Altria Client Services senior vice president and associate general counsel, speaking on behalf of Philip Morris USA (PM USA). “The plaintiffs prevailed only on the narrow claim that ventilated filter cigarettes between 1964 and July 1, 1969 should have included instructions on how to properly use them.”

“Today’s decision may allow some individual plaintiffs to move forward with their individual cases. However, only those individuals who smoked ventilated filter cigarettes between 1964 and 1969 may pursue claims and those individuals will be required to show a link between the failure to instruct and their injuries. Although we disagree with the jury’s verdict on this narrow claim, in the event that any plaintiff chooses to pursue this claim, PM USA has strong defenses,” added Garnick.

The decision followed litigation in which about 600 West Virginia plaintiffs’ cases are being tried under a two-phase trial plan. Phase I was to determine the so-called ‘common issues’ about whether all cigarettes are defective, whether the companies acted negligently or concealed the danger of smoking, and whether the companies’ conduct warranted punitive damages.

In Phase II, individual plaintiffs who choose to pursue their claims will go to trial separately.

Of the 600 consolidated cases, 346 are pending against PM USA.

A US casino that went bankrupt has acknowledged that preventing its clients from smoking was one of a number of key mistakes it had made in running its business, according to an Asbury Park Press story.

But now it has a chance to put things right. The New Jersey Casino Control Commission approved Revel’s reorganization plan, which will eliminate $1.2 billion of its $1.5 billion in debt by giving lenders an 82 per cent ownership stake.

That plan was approved by a bankruptcy court judge on Monday, and Revel expected formally to emerge from bankruptcy the following day.

In winning a reprieve, the bankrupt casino was said to have acknowledged several big mistakes, including ‘preventing its guests from smoking; not paying enough attention to slots players; and booking too many hip acts at the expense of other forms of entertainment’.

“Everybody deserves a second chance,” said Jeffrey Hartmann, Revel’s interim CEO. “We’re looking for a second chance. We are trying to listen to and respond to customers. We probably didn’t do a great job of that last year.”

Regulators’ approval did not come easily, as commissioners and a representative of the state Division of Gaming Enforcement expressed serious concerns about Revel’s ability to turn itself around and save its 4,600 jobs.

Universal Corp is due to webcast at www.universalcorp.com a conference call on May 21 following the release of its results for fiscal year 2013 after market close on that date.

The conference call, which will be in listen-only mode, will begin at 17.30 hours Eastern Time and will be hosted by Candace C. Formacek, vice president and treasurer.

A replay of the webcast conference call will be available until August 5.

And a taped replay of the call will be available from 20.30 hours on May 21 until June 4 at (855) 859-2056. The telephone replay identification number is 73216156.

Smokers who violate tobacco smoking bans in China’s Shenzhen city are likely to face heavy fines in the future.

According to a Global Times story, proposed revisions to Shenzhen city’s tobacco control regulations, which were given a public airing yesterday, would see maximum fines raised from Yuan20 to Yuan500.

Business owners who failed to stop smokers violating bans would be fined up to Yuan30,000.

Wang Ke’an, director of the Beijing-based ThinktankResearchCenter for Health Development, was said to have told the Global Times that heavy fines were necessary, especially in ensuring that business owners prevented their customers from smoking.

The fines are just one indication that Shenzhen is becoming serious about enforcing anti-tobacco laws. The number of tobacco control enforcement agencies the city boasts has risen to 12 from one in 1998, the year in which public places smoking bans were introduced, and these agencies are spread across several government departments, including police, transport and education.

Meanwhile, Yang Gonghuan, deputy director of the ChineseCenter for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Global Times that the keys to enforcement were “supervisory channels and information transparency”.

The new heavy fines would serve their purpose only once there was a system in place for reporting violators and officials disclosed how reports were dealt with.
Wang said that efficiency would be improved as the different enforcement agencies started to watch over their own territories, though the question of how the law would be upheld equally by officers from all 12 agencies would still present a challenge.

But anything is better than nothing. In the 14 years following the introduction of smoking bans in 1998, no Yuan20 fines were imposed.

The number of cigarette butts found on UK beaches doubled between September 2011 and September 2012, and the amount of smoking-related detritus rose by 90 per cent, according to an ITV Network report quoting the Marine Conservation Society’s (MCS) annual study of beach litter, Beachwatch Big Weekend.

Overall, litter levels were at their highest level since 2008, and the number of items of rubbish found per kilometre of beach was up from 1,741 in 2011 to just more than 2,000 in 2012.

The MCS said that the rise in smoking-related litter [at a time when smoking is in decline] could be a consequence of more people smoking outside as a result of smoking bans, and dropping their butts rather than putting them in ashtrays.

However, tobacco-related litter was not the main offender. About 65 per cent of the litter recorded was made of plastic, with unidentified scraps of plastic topping the table for the most commonly found litter.

After pieces of plastic, the most commonly found items were crisp, lolly and sweet wrappers, bits of string and cord, caps and lids, pieces of polystyrene, and drinks bottles. The other items making up the top 10 litter list were fishing netting, cigarette stubs, pieces of glass, and fishing line.