Since the sale of glass pipes has recently become illegal, local tobacco retailers are feeling the backlash, proving this situation is causing problems besides making it more difficult for smokers to obtain a pipe.
The recent change has forced Freedom Tobacco and Clothing and Skateboards, 511 State St., and Knuckleheads Tobacco and Gifts, 550 State St., to combine. After five years at the same location, according to Clint Nerhring, manager of Freedom, the store will move into the back part of Knuckleheads above Qdoba, 548 State St., after the renovations are done in roughly three weeks.
\In the summer we kill with the skateboards, but in the winter we rely on the pipe sales,"" Nehring said. ""So since Steve [manager of Knuckleheads] and I have been friends for a while, we just decided to combine.""
Overall, the employees said they have an optimistic outlook for the change, but some part-time employees of the stores may see a cut in hours. Josh Falk, assistant manager of Freedom, said if sales pick up they will be able to keep their workers and their hours. However, if not, some part-time employees may be forced to find other jobs because 10 hours a week will not suffice.
""It'll be great for everyone, the only downfall is cutting hours. I think they're being overly optimistic in not talking about firing anyone, but the combination will provide for a good dynamic anyway,"" Jen Arnold, a sales clerk at Knuckleheads, said.
Each store has its own loyal base of customers and Jim Rice, a cashier at Knuckleheads, said he believes this will just be something else to bring the two bases together.
Freedom will suffer the greater change according to Falk because they are the ones moving to a new location where he says they will get less foot traffic.
""The cool part is that we're still going to do skateboards, the sucky part is it's not just skateboards,"" Ryan Pierce, sales clerk at Freedom said.
However, although the two stores are combining into one location, they will remain separate entities in that both will maintain separate names.
""It'll be cool. We'll have a new skateboard store, air conditioning and we hope to even expand into snowboards,"" Falk said.
