Store owners make plea to City Council on tobacco ban
WOONSOCKET — Local convenience store owners and their employees gave it their best shot on Monday while trying to have the City Council overturn a new ordinance aimed at limiting the opportunity for young people to purchase flavored tobacco products in the city.
The pitch was made during a City Council work session on the ordinance, set to go into effect on July 1, along with another measure establishing a $75 city license for the sale of tobacco products that also drew opponents of flavored tobacco who support the city’s legislation, including representatives from the state Department of Health and substance abuse prevention groups.
The ban for convenience stores was enacted as a way to keep teens from having easy access to the tobacco products some view has been specifically marketed to that age group through the flavors, packaging and product placement. The ordinance approved in Woonsocket is similar one the state Department of Health supported for enactment in Providence that seeks to limit the sales of such products to tobacco retail stores and similar adult purchasing venues.
The City Council took no action on the ordinances at the end of the hearing, but council members such as Council President Daniel Gendron and Councilman Jon Brien indicated there will be a review by the panel that might result in modifications before the July 1 enactment date.
Attorney David Carlin told the Council he was representing Antoine Elhosri of AJ’s Mini Mart at 939 Social St. in his opposition to the ban and noted most of the 37 convenience stores in the city would shares his position.
The stores’ owners, he said, are well-established in the community and provide both revenue support to the city as well as community affairs support through local charities and organizations.
“If you take all of the stores
Continued from page A1 that are here this evening, you will no doubt have hundreds of years of experience in the city selling products mostly to city residents,” Carlin said.
The owners present were the operators of “Mom and Pop,” businesses, he said, that support dozens of employees at each store and hundreds of employees collectively.
They are also concerned that they may have been too busy with their operations and helping the community to notice the ordinances the city council put in during its past term that will now restrict their sales, according to Carlin.
“They really would like to know why their stores and this particular product – why is that they in particular are being singled out for the legal products that they sell,” Carlin asked the councilors.
“There are rules and regulations, probably some of the strongest at the federal, state and local level governing their sale of products,” he continued. “And frankly it is an issue of breaking the law or the regulations that exist and the solution is not what was proposed in the original ordinance.
“The solution perhaps is stronger enforcement. Higher fines. What these store owners are selling and what the proposed ordinance suggests to prohibit, it is just a gateway to other products and other services the stores are selling,” he said, while pointing to the flavored products as helping to draw customers who then purchase other products from the stores.
He also argued that if the local stores cannot sell flavored tobacco products, customers will go elsewhere to make their purchases.
“We, you, are a border community. Just like Tiverton is, just like Westerly is, just like Pawtucket is. Any time you make it harder for these stores to sell their products then you make it easier for the consumer, often repeat consumers, regular customers, to go over the border and buy in Massachusetts, or in Connecticut,” he said.
“They are buying, as I said, a gateway to other products and they are spending good money in these stores,” Carlin said.
Carlin also described the local store as the best line for enforcement of tobacco sales rules since their employees are already trained in that area and are vigilant against violations.
“These stores are in the front line of enforcement. These stores and their clerks and their employees are the ones who know the law and regulations for tobacco sales. These are the ones who are most at stake of losing financially, or license-wise, if they disregard or disobey the laws and the regulations,” he said.
All that the store owners are asking, Carlin told the council members, “is a chance to do fair business in City of Woonsocket and we respectfully ask for the withdrawal of the ordinance.”
The council also heard from other representatives of the stores who pointed the small margin of profit available in the convenience store business as making such sales of flavored tobacco products all the more important to their viability.
John Silva, an employee of the CT Plus store at 11 Hamlet Ave., said he had been out of work for a period of time when the owners of the business gave him an opportunity to work. The city’s economy doesn’t make it easy to keep a business going as it is, Silva told the council.
“Business owners are losing money as it is and losing their businesses. If these guys lose their business, I’m going to lose my job. How am I going to work? How am I going to provide for my children?” Silva asked.
One of CT Plus’ owners, Tony Germanos, told the council’s new ordinance is “not fair for us and not fair for the people who work for us.
“We would like you to reconsider this and repeal the ban. We are going to keep begging you, the Council, until this is happening. It’s not fair. It’s hurting us deeply,” Germanos said.