The Commonwealth Court majority invalidated a January 2007 ban on flavored tobacco products and on cigarettes sold individually or in pairs, making them likely to be used for drugs.

But the court said it was permissible for the city to prohibit retailers from selling certain tobacco drug paraphernalia, such as hollowed-out cigars known as "blunts."

The difference is that the ban on blunts requires proof that the seller knows or should know they would be used for drugs, the court said. The ordinance's provisions regarding flavored tobacco and single cigarettes do not include that language.

A Philadelphia judge had previously ruled that the ordinance was unenforceable and was preempted by the state's Controlled Substance Act.

The ordinance incorrectly maintained that a retailer "can be held liable even if it does not know that the sale of a single cigarette or flavored cigar will result in the buyer using the tobacco product to inhale illegal drugs," Commonwealth Court Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt wrote.

"By contrast, the Controlled Substance Act exempts persons from liability who do not know, or cannot reasonably know, that the tobacco item being sold would be used by the buyer to ingest illegal drugs," she wrote.

Commonwealth Court also ruled that the city can ban the sale of certain tobacco products within 500 feet of churches and schools, regardless of how they are intended to be used.

City lawyers said they were studying the opinion and had not decided whether to appeal.

Lawyers for the tobacco businesses that sued the city and its Licenses and Inspections commissioner said they were unfamiliar with details about the decision or did not return phone messages.

Read the opinion at http://go.philly.com/tobaccosales