Business fighting back against proposed tobacco sales restrictions

The debate continues over Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal to reduce the smoking rate in the city. Aside from making New York the first city in the nation to keep tobacco products out of sight, the multi-faceted plan – announced by Bloomberg back in March – is intended to keep them out of mind as well, to help combat the 7,000 smoking-related, preventable deaths per year.

The “Tobacco Product Display Restriction” bill aims to keep tobacco products out of sight in retail stores, except during a purchase by an adult consumer or during restocking. According to the mayor’s press office, studies show that such displays increase the likelihood that youths will experiment with tobacco products and become addicted.

“New York City has dramatically lowered our smoking rate, but even one new smoker is one too many – especially when it’s a young person,” said Bloomberg. “Young people are targets of marketing and the availability of cigarettes and this legislation will help prevent another generation from the ill health and shorter life expectancy that comes with smoking.”

The restrictions on tobacco product display are expected to not only protect young people from smoking, but also remove the temptation of impulsive buys by quitters.

But, representatives of Save Our Stores, an organization representing the small stores that sell the products, contend that, should the bill become law, their members would be negatively impacted.

Representing almost 10,000 licensed tobacco retailers and over 56,000 grocery-related employees from all five boroughs, major associations of small grocers, bodegas, supermarkets and newsstands, Save Our Stores argues that if enacted, the legislation would cause retailers to lose nearly $16 million from having to hide cigarettes, as they would be cut off from receiving promotional allowances and point-of-sale materials.

Additionally, the stores would have to convert valuable selling areas into dead space to conceal tobacco products. Retailers would also be prohibited from redeeming coupons or honoring other price discounts for tobacco products, creating a minimum price for cigarettes and little cigars of $10.50 per pack.

These circumstances would result in $1,593 in losses to the average store, with Brooklyn projected by the group to lose 558 of its existing 1,635 tobacco retailers.

“The economic toll of the mayor’s proposed tobacco regulations is severe: closed stores and lost jobs throughout the city. With unemployment still close to nine percent and hundreds of thousands still unable to find work, this is just another case of the wrong priorities at the wrong time,” said Jim Calvin, the president of the New York Association of Convenience Stores.

Rachelle Rochelle, borough manager of the Brooklyn Smoke-Free Partnership, disagrees.   “[The legislation] is not limiting a sale. Once people start smoking, they know where to get cigarettes,” Rochelle said.

The Partnership would like to stop people from smoking before they start. Working with the Chinese-American Planning Council, Brooklyn Branch, they recently took a group of 10 students from P.S. 209 in Sheepshead Bay to a store selling tobacco products. A fifth grader, Victoria, said “It’s right there, with thousands of bright colors, and huge banners, and it catches your eye; it’s the first thing you see.”

In 2011, 28,000 city public high school students experimented with smoking for the first time, and 19,000 public high school students under the age of 18 smoked, according to the mayor’s office, which contends that youths who are frequently exposed to tobacco product displays are 2.5 times more likely to initiate smoking than those who have not been exposed. The symptoms affiliated with tobacco dependence can begin soon after an adolescent first tries smoking.

Save Our Stores agrees that tobacco products should be kept out of the hands of New York’s youth, but points to a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration study, which shows that the nation’s retailers had a 91.5 percent compliance rate with underage sale laws in 2011, a vast improvement from 59.9 percent in 1997.

“There are enough existing regulations on tobacco already. This legislative package places even more unfair burdens on legal retailers by increasing the amount of fines that we face, and could ultimately undo the underage access prevention and tax compliance goals we all share by driving people to illegal sellers who do not care about the age of the buyers,” said Ramon Murphy, president of The Bodega Association of the United States.

Save Our Stores also contends that the city’s contraband tobacco trade is a growing issue, exacerbated by the fact that excise taxes on cigarettes in New York City are the highest in the nation, giving an advantage to sellers of illicit tobacco, and resulting in $1.67 billion in lost revenue in 2011, according to NACS, the Association for Convenience & Fuel Retailing.

Another bill, “Sensible Tobacco Enforcement,” is targeted at containing illegal cigarette smuggling.