Distributor's license

No person may engage in business as a distributor of cigarettes in this State within the meaning of the first 2 definitions of distributor in Section 1 of this Act without first having obtained a license therefor from the Department. Application for license shall be made to the Department in form as furnished and prescribed by the Department. Each applicant for a license under this Section shall furnish to the Department on the form signed and verified by the applicant under penalty of perjury the following information: (a) The name and address of the applicant; (b) The address of the location at which the applicant proposes to engage in business as a distributor of cigarettes in this State; (c) Such other additional information as the Department may lawfully require by its rules and regulations. The annual license fee payable to the Department for each distributor's license shall be $250. The purpose of such annual license fee is to defray the cost, to the Department, of serializing cigarette tax stamps. Each applicant for license shall pay such fee to the Department at the time of submitting his application for license to the Department. Every applicant who is required to procure a distributor's license shall file with his application a joint and several bond. Such bond shall be executed to the Department of Revenue, with good and sufficient surety or sureties residing or licensed to do business within the State of Illinois, in the amount of $2,500, conditioned upon the true and faithful compliance by the licensee with all of the provisions of this Act. Such bond, or a reissue thereof, or a substitute therefor, shall be kept in effect during the entire period covered by the license. A separate application for license shall be made, a separate annual license fee paid, and a separate bond filed, for each place of business at which a person who is required to procure a distributor's license under this Section proposes to engage in business as a distributor in Illinois under this Act. The following are ineligible to receive a distributor's license under this Act: (1) a person who is not of good character and reputation in the community in which he resides; the Department may consider past conviction of a felony but the conviction shall not operate as an absolute bar to licensure; (2) a person who has been convicted of a felony under any Federal or State law, if the Department, after investigation and a hearing and consideration of mitigating factors and evidence of rehabilitation contained in the applicant's record, including those in Section 4i, determines that such person has not been sufficiently rehabilitated to warrant the public trust and the conviction will impair the ability of the person to engage in the position for which a license is sought; (3) a corporation, if any officer, manager or director thereof, or any stockholder or stockholders owning in the aggregate more than 5% of the stock of such corporation, would not be eligible to receive a license under this Act for any reason; (4) a person, or any person who owns more than 15 percent of the ownership interests in a person or a related party who: (a) owes, at the time of application, any delinquent cigarette taxes that have been determined by law to be due and unpaid, unless the license applicant has entered into an agreement approved by the Department to pay the amount due; (b) had a license under this Act revoked within the past two years by the Department for misconduct relating to stolen or contraband cigarettes or has been convicted of a State or federal crime, punishable by imprisonment of one year or more, relating to stolen or contraband cigarettes; (c) manufactures cigarettes, whether in this State or out of this State, and who is neither (i) a participating manufacturer as defined in subsection II(jj) of the "Master Settlement Agreement" as defined in Sections 10 of the Tobacco Products Manufacturers' Escrow Act and the Tobacco Products Manufacturers' Escrow Enforcement Act of 2003