One Hitch To Shopping At U.S. Duty-Free Stores

BLAINE, Whatcom County - If you want to shop at a duty-free store in the U.S., you can.

The only requirement is that you have to be leaving the country.

There are two duty-free stores at the I-5 "truck crossing" near the Vancouver border - Pac Can Duty Free and Ammex Tax & Duty Free. Both also have showrooms at the Peace Arch crossing.

Ammex, a subsidiary of Ridgefield, Conn.-based Duty Free International, also owns shops at the Lynden and Sumas border crossings.

The Canadian government allows U.S. residents to bring up to 40 ounces of liquor or a 24-can case of beer, and either one carton of cigarettes, 50 cigars or two pounds of tobacco into Canada duty-free.

Although duty-free shopping on the Canadian side is relatively new, duty-free stores have operated on the U.S. border since the late 1950s.

Pac Can has been around since the mid-1960s, and when Ammex entered Western Washington earlier this year, it purchased a chain of duty-free stores that had been operating for approximately the same amount of time.

Although Canadian stores tend to be tailored to an individual business owner's tastes, the U.S. stores offer fairly standard fare - liquor, cigarettes, perfumes. But in recent years, the U.S. duty-free shops have begun to follow their Canadian counterparts and offer a broader range of merchandise, including watches and film.

"In 1965, if someone had said, `sell sunglasses, watches, jewelry and candy,' I probably would have laughed," says Pac Can President David Miller. "Back then, it was liquor, cigarettes, end of story."