Out of sight out of mind outrage
Smokers and tobacconists in a huff about new plan
CIGARETTES will have to be kept out of sight in New York City stores under a new plan unveiled by mayor Michael Bloomberg this week, igniting complaints from tobacco companies and smokers who say that they have had enough with the city’s crackdowns.
Shops – from corner stores to supermarkets – will have to keep tobacco products in cabinets, drawers, under the counter, behind a curtain or in other concealed spots.
Officials also want to stop shops from taking cigarette coupons and honouring discounts, and are proposing a minimum price for cigarettes.
Anti-smoking advocates and health experts hailed the proposals as a bold effort to take on a habit that remains the leading preventable cause of death in a city that has already helped impose the highest cigarette taxes in the US, barred smoking in restaurants, bars, parks and beaches and launched sometimes graphic advertising campaigns about the effects of smoking.
The ban on displaying cigarettes follows similar laws in Iceland, Canada, England and Ireland, but it will be the first such measure in the US.
“Such displays suggest that smoking is a normal activity,” Bloomberg said.
But smokers and cigarette sellers said the measure was overreaching.
“I don’t disagree that smoking is risky, but it’s a legal product,” said Audrey Silk, who’s affiliated with a smokers rights group that has sued the city over previous regulations.
“Tobacco’s been normal for centuries. It’s what he’s doing that’s not normal,” Silk added.
Slated to be introduced to the City council yesterday, the anti-smoking proposal is a sign that a mayor who has built a reputation as a public health crusader isn’t backing off after a high-profile setback last week, when a judge struck down the city’s efforts to ban supersized sugary drinks. The city is appealing the decision.
“We’re doing these health things to save lives,” Bloomberg said this week.
Bloomberg, a billionaire who has given $600-million (R5.5-billion) of his own money to anti-smoking efforts around the world, began taking on tobacco use shortly after he became mayor in 2002.
Adult smoking rates have since fallen by nearly a third – from 21.5% in 2002 to 14.8% in 2011, health commissioner Dr Thomas Farley said.
But the youth rate has remained flat, at 8.5%, since 2007.
Some 28 000 city public high school pupils tried smoking for the first time in 2011, city officials claimed.
Keeping cigarettes under wraps could help change that, anti-smoking advocates say, citing studies that link exposure to smoking with starting it.
Though some of the research focuses on cigarette advertising, a British study of 11- to 15-year-olds, published last month in the journal Tobacco Control, found that simply noticing tobacco products on display every time a youth visited a shop raised the odds he or she would try smoking by threefold, compared with peers who never noticed the products.
“What’s exciting about this [New York City proposal] is that this is the most comprehensive set of tobaccocontrol regulations that affect stores, or the retail outlets,” said Kurt Ribisi, a professor of public health and cancer prevention specialist at the University of North Carolina.
Cigarettes’ visibility can trigger impulse buys by smokers who are trying to quit, he and city officials said.
The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, among others, applauded Bloomberg’s announcement, made at a hospital in Queens.
City council speaker Christine Quinn, who largely controls what goes to a vote, said through her office that she “supports the goal of these bills” but noted they would get a full review.
Measures in other countries have been coupled with bans on in-store advertising, but those nations have different legal standards governing advertising and free speech.
The New York City proposal will still allow shops to display cigarette advertising and signs saying tobacco products are sold, raising the question of how effective it would be to put the products under wraps.
But store owners fear it could affect their business by potentially leaving customers uncertain if the shop carries their favourite brand and making them wait while a proprietor digs out a pack, said Jeff Lenard, a spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores.
“It slows down the transaction, and our name is convenience store,” he said.
Jay Kim, who owns a Manhattan deli, saw the proposal as a bid to net fines.
“I know the city wants money,” he said at his store, where packs of cigarettes can be seen behind the counter, along with numerous signs warning of the dangers of smoking and prohibiting sales to minors. Bloomberg, for his part, emphasised that collecting money was “not the reason”.
The displays will be checked as part of the shops’ normal city inspections, but information on the potential penalties wasn’t immediately available this week.
Shops that make more than half their revenue from tobacco products will, however, be exempt from the display ban.
“It goes too far,” said David Sutton, a spokesman for the Altria Group Inc, parent company of Philip Morris USA, which makes Marlboro. — Sapa-AP