Catering to the Smoker on a Budget : Business: Tony El-Saddy offers cigarette prices below those of warehouse membership stores. But the specter of higher taxes is unsettling.

Tony El-Saddy doesn’t make any pretenses or apologies to political correctness. He sells cigarettes, and that’s all.

From Marlboros to Merits, Camels to Carltons and Kents to Kools, El-Saddy’s newly opened Cigstore has them all, as well as the lesser-known discount brands and some of the high-priced imports.

Tucked away in a Canyon Country strip mall, Cigstore is not a tobacco shop catering to those looking for the finest Davidoff or Zino to go with their after-dinner brandy. Rather, carton upon carton of tobacco tubes line the shelves, and bins of discount smokes sit in the middle of the nondescript store.

“I’m not pushing people to smoke,” said El-Saddy, who himself puts away four packs a day. “There are a lot of people who smoke in this town. I am just trying to save them some money.”

El-Saddy’s prices are even lower than those at warehouse membership stores, meaning that he has to count on high volume to turn a profit. El-Saddy said he makes only a 20-cent profit on each pack, compared to about 60 cents or more at other stores.

“It’s tough, especially with those taxes people are talking about,” El-Saddy said, referring to a proposed 75-cent federal tax on packs of cigarettes. “A lot of people are trying to quit smoking.”

The store has a fan in Lydia Brown, a Marlboro Light smoker.

“Everyone who smokes comes here, the prices are great,” said the Canyon Country resident, who used to get her cigarettes at supermarkets. She said she now saves more than $1 a pack.

“Before they came here, we couldn’t afford the regular brands,” Brown said, clutching a brown paper bag that held four packs. “We had to go to the cheap ones, which kill your chest.”

The store does sell lighters, pouches of pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco, cigarette-making kits and other puffing paraphernalia, but the smokes are the staple of the store, with about 200 styles and brands.

“I know this is a nice area, and there is no business like it in Canyon Country,” said El-Saddy.

“I decided to open the store before they came out with the new proposal on the taxes,” said El-Saddy, who said business has been moderate but gradually climbing. “I might have to shut down the Canyon Country store if the taxes go up. Seventy-five cents is just too much.”

El-Saddy previously worked for various liquor stores and mini-markets and decided he wanted to go into business for himself. He started his first Cigstore in Palmdale earlier this year before opening the Canyon Country location three weeks ago.

The 27-year-old native of Lebanon, who started smoking by mimicking his father when he was a kid, doesn’t buy into the claims by scientists and medical professionals that smoking causes cancer, and scoffs at the “coffin nail” and “cancer stick” nicknames.

“The air outside in California causes cancer more than cigarettes,” said El-Saddy, who opened his first Cigstore in Palmdale earlier this year. “Back in my country, I know people who have smoked for 80 years and lived until 110.”