Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 10, 1994                   TAG: 9408100067
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ                                LENGTH: Short

DISPENSER OFFERS A SMOKE AT A TIME WHEN YOU'RE DOWN TO LAST FEW DIMES

``I got a choice. Do I buy a pack of cigarettes for $3 and lose my next cocktail?'' asks Laidlaw, whose invention dispenses cigarettes one at a time. ``Or do I spend a quarter and have it all - one cigarette and one cocktail?''

Laidlaw's Uni-Cig machine is aimed at the smoker who's short of pocket change - or the occasional puffer who doesn't want to pop for a whole pack.

The black plastic box dispenses generic smokes - regular, menthol and light. A quarter sends down a single cigarette packed in a plastic tube emblazoned with the Surgeon General's health warning and the Uni-Cig brand name.

``When you might want JUST ONE!'' reads the sign atop the machine.

Uni-Cig has been tested for about 18 months in 500 bars, restaurants and hotels in the Phoenix area. Laidlaw plans to put it on the market this month.

Laidlaw built the first machine on his kitchen table in 1992, collaborating with his 11-year-old granddaughter. They used the wooden spindle from a toilet paper dispenser and pieces of compact disc boxes they glued together.

Laidlaw, who runs a vending machine repair and distribution business, has risked about $300,000 of his own money on the project. When he goes into full production, he will be the nation's only manufacturer of cigarette vending machines of any kind, since slumping sales forced the last manufacturer to drop the line.