Missouri lawmakers have an opportunity right now to bring fairness, consistency, and fiscal common sense to the regulation of tobacco and nicotine products across the state. House Bill 2085 would establish statewide preemption for the sale of tobacco, alternative nicotine, and vapor products, meaning that every retailer in every city would operate under the same rules. The Missouri Senate should pass it without delay.

Ware Brands is a company that owns and operates 35 JB Hawks tobacco retail stores across Missouri and Illinois. I am the Vice President of the company, and we have 10 stores in nine Missouri cities. I know this industry, and I know this state, and I can tell you plainly: the absence of a uniform statewide standard is not a minor inconvenience. It is a serious and growing threat to retailers, their employees, and Missouri’s own tax base.

Here is the problem in plain terms. Right now, any Missouri city can decide on its own to ban the sale of certain tobacco or nicotine products, such as flavored e-cigarettes, while a neighboring city opts not to. What does that mean in practice? It means a customer living between two cities will simply drive to whichever store can sell what they want. That is frustrating enough for the customer. But consider what it means for businesses like ours that have one store on each side of that line.

Store A, located in a city with no ban, can sell the product. Store B, one town over, cannot. Same company. Same trained employees. Same commitment to responsible retailing. But Store A now has a built-in competitive advantage over Store B through no fault of either store. Store B loses sales, loses foot traffic, and over time may lose staff or close altogether. That is not fair competition. That is a regulatory accident punishing businesses and workers for nothing more than their zip code.

Just 18 months ago, Kansas City attempted to impose a ban on flavored tobacco products. The retail community pushed back and stopped it, for now. But the attempt alone was enough to create uncertainty, disrupt planning, and put retailers on edge. The question was never just whether the ban would pass. It was: what happens next time? And the time after that? Without statewide preemption, every city in Missouri is a potential battleground, and every retailer is left waiting to see which way the wind blows.

For a company with stores in nine Missouri cities, that uncertainty carries real operational weight. Tracking different rules across jurisdictions increases compliance costs and increases the risk of unintentionally running afoul of conflicting local ordinances. Small and mid-size retailers simply do not have the legal and administrative resources to keep up with a patchwork of local regulations that can change at any time.

There is also a dimension to this debate that does not get enough attention: how local tobacco restrictions affect Missouri’s state budget.

When a city bans the sale of a legal tobacco product, the financial consequences ripple well beyond city hall. The state loses excise tax revenue it would otherwise collect. Four of our stores are located near the Illinois border. If a local restriction were imposed in any of those communities, customers would not stop buying tobacco products. They would simply cross the state line and buy them in Illinois. The tax revenue follows the sale, and if the sale leaves Missouri, so does the money. The state of Missouri and the citizens who depend on that excise revenue to fund important programs will feel the impact.

HB 2085 addresses all of this. It places the regulation of tobacco and nicotine product sales where it belongs: at the state level, applied consistently and fairly to every retailer in every community. It does not eliminate consumer protections. Local governments retain the ability to inspect retailers and enforce age-of-purchase laws. What it does eliminate is the growing risk that Missouri becomes a state where the rules for doing business change depending on which side of a city line your store happens to sit on.

Missouri should be a place where businesses compete on merit, not on the accident of geography. Pass HB 2085.