Ban on flavored tobacco would hurt consumers and merchants

The New Mexico Legislature is considering a bill that would ban the sale of all flavored tobacco products in an effort to keep kids from getting hooked on tobacco. As a company that takes great pride in supporting New Mexico families with good jobs and safe, clean places to work and shop, we are on the same side as officials regarding preventing and reducing youth access to tobacco products.

Since December 2019, Allsup’s stores in New Mexico have passed every one of their 16 inspections. That’s a 100 percent compliance rate with state age-verification laws.

We take carding seriously. We can’t afford not to. That’s because we employ 1,783 hardworking New Mexicans whose livelihoods depend on our stores staying open for business. Convenience stores like Allsup’s are truly neighborhood markets. Ninety-three percent of Americans live within 10 minutes of one of America’s 152,720 convenience stores. The industry serves 165 million customers per day, sells 80 percent of the fuel purchased in the country and donates more than $1 billion a year to charitable causes.

Here in New Mexico, we operate 117 stores and provide essential goods to New Mexico around the clock, even during a pandemic and severe weather. To keep gas and grocery items available and affordable, we must maintain a certain level of revenue. Tobacco represents about 23 percent of the company’s inside sales in our Allsup’s stores. Of those sales, 32 percent come from flavored tobacco products.

You don’t have to like tobacco or use it. I don’t, but prohibiting our responsible employees and company from selling these adult products to adult customers will result in an annual loss of nearly $16 million in sales and $2.78 million in revenue. Will this affect our ability to keep many of our great team members employed and prices down for our millions of customers each year? Yes.

Allsup’s has been a cornerstone in each of its local communities for over 60 years. The company’s founders were true pioneers, innovators and visionaries of convenience store retailing. They were the first to offer customers hot, cooked foods; self-serve gasoline sales; and 24-hour service.

Well-meaning state lawmakers threaten not only our business but local mom and pops whose revenues and, subsequently, jobs, are directly tied to the legal sales of flavored tobacco products. It’s estimated the Legislature’s proposed sales ban will result in the loss of 1,200 jobs and $50 million in local wages.

We encourage New Mexicans who have come to rely on their local convenience stores to consider the adverse consequences of House Bill 205. Not only would a statewide ban affect our industry, our employees and the essential services we make available to our customers, it would drive tobacco sales tax revenue straight to neighboring states and the illicit market.

Monies that go to support critical state services will instead go to other states’ coffers or, worse, to the deep pockets of criminals who are already smuggling cigarettes, costing the state an estimated $20 million annually in tax revenues. Law enforcement officials will tell you, these gangsters are not carding young people, and they’re certainly not sending taxes to the state.

The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with the states directed $33.9 million to New Mexico in 2020. Let’s invest that money in smoking cessation programs and education programs that we know are working to bring smoking to all-time historic lows. Instead of passing a law that will punish responsible companies and employees doing the right thing, legislators should work with their partners on the front line who proudly stop tobacco sales to young people.