  We demonstrate that the long distance contribution to $B^{\pm} \to \rho^{\pm}
\gamma$ may have a large effect on the decay rate and through it on the CP
violating partial rate asymmetry. The change in the asymmetry can be between a
factor of 0.4 and 1.4 with respect to the effect of the short distance
contribution alone, depending on the values of the CKM parameters $\rho$ and
$\eta$ .
