Ciggy sellers to get butts kicked out?

Despite its size, Auckland region has only 33 outlets in proposal

The Auckland region will have among the fewest tobacco retailers in the country under a Ministry of Health proposal.

The ministry last month released a proposal for public consultation on how it plans to reduce tobacco retailers from 6000 to 600 by July next year and has released maps indicating how many retailers should be operating in different regions.

The plan relates to the world-first reform to the sale of tobacco in New Zealand introduced by now Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall, which included the significant reduction of retailers and the inability for anyone born on or after January 1, 2009, to buy smoked tobacco products.

Despite having roughly a third of the national population, the Auckland region would have only 33 tobacco retailers — the fourth-lowest of the 12 regions identified.

Waikato would have the most with 90, followed by Otago/Southland (87), Canterbury/Chatham Islands (77) and Bay of Plenty (59).

The proposal’s authors explained it was likely there would be more premises per person who smoked in rural areas compared with urban areas because they intended to avoid clusterings of retailers in poorer areas but also ensure reasonable access for those who lived rurally.

However, representatives of retailers continue to criticise the reform, saying the proposed spread isn’t logical and needs to be reworked.

“It really doesn’t make sense,” Retail NZ chief executive Greg Harford said.

“I believe that it should be a little bit more thought over,” Dairy and Business Owners Group spokesman Sandeep Aggarwal said.

Verrall wasn’t available to be interviewed but a statement provided to the Weekend Herald from the ministry’s public health policy and regulation group manager Jane Chambers said the 2018 Census data was used to develop the example locations.

“For urban areas, a base calculation was used to translate population and smoker numbers to potential numbers for urban retail premises,” she said.

“Estimated drive times between urban areas and along state highways were used as the basis for potential retail premise numbers in rural areas.

“The allocation scenarios and the locations in the consultation document have been provided only as examples. This is not what the final distribution will look like. Local adjustments can and will need to be made.”

The proposal outlined the authors’ view retailer distribution shouldn’t be solely determined by how many smokers lived in a region, saying it would mean most retailers were in Auckland while other smaller urban areas would end up with no stores.

Alongside store allocation, the document listed the criteria that could be used to determine which retailers could sell tobacco products.

They included having sufficient security such as secure product storage, a working fog cannon, an alarm system and security cameras.

Employees would need to be educated on their responsibilities under the law, sales must be recorded and delivery processes to be secure.

If two applicants equally satisfied the criteria, choosing one could come down to whether they were close to schools or sports grounds.

Aggarwal said he believed many retailers wouldn’t bother attempting to comply with the criteria and would instead try to adapt their business, threatening their survival. Harford echoed his concern. “The problem you’ve got is for many of these businesses, particularly serving little communities, they’re customer driven so you can diversify all you like but if your customers don’t want to buy Ponsonbystyle lattes then they won’t.”

Submissions close on March 15.