MARYSVILLE — Barely a year after opening Marysville Tobacco Joes in 2011, Michael Thorn closed the store’s doors last summer, but with the New Year came a new bid to make a go at his business, as Marysville Tobacco Joes reopened at its old location, at 450 State Ave. and 1508 Fifth St., on Jan. 28 of this year.

“We tried to cater to the roll-your-own crowd, but legislation and litigation tied up the usage of the machines,” Thorn said. “We’re still hoping we can be grandfathered in, because our business was already using the roll-your-own machine when those laws were passed, and the federal government can’t take your property without due process, so that should allow the roll-your-own tobacco stores that were preexisting to haul their machines back out of storage.”

In the meantime, Thorn has branched out into offering custom glass and bamboo pipes, as well as vaporizers and electronic cigarettes, the latter of which he’s already anticipating will be one of his store’s biggest sellers.

“We’ve had a lot of inquiries about the e-cigarettes,” Thorn said. “We’ve also talked about getting tobacco leaves to sell people, but we want to finish our dehumidifier before that. We’ll be carrying a lot of consignment and novelty items that you can’t just get at any chain. We’ve also applied for our beer and wine license, but we’re not ready to start selling those just quite yet.”

Thorn took advantage of his store’s downtime to remodel and expand its interior by an additional 500 square feet, and he reassured his former customers from before the store’s closure last year that Marysville Tobacco Joes will continue to carry roll-your-own supplies such as tobacco and paper, but without the machine to make the roll-your-own process more convenient for them.

“We’ve still got that machine, just sitting around,” Thorn said. “We just can’t use it now. The law put us in a tight spot. It’s an extremely unfair hardship. E-cigarettes are the biggest move the tobacco industry has made since then, so we’re obviously hoping that the FDA will rule that they’re less dangerous than smoking.”

Marysville Tobacco Joes is now open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week. For more information, call 360-454-0603 or log onto www.joessmokes.com.