Shop owners rubbish claims
BY RACHEL YOUNG
Relevant offers
Marlborough's cancer society has renewed calls to ban point-of-sale tobacco displays, but Blenheim dairy owners say there is no need to hide cigarettes at the counter.
Earlier this year the government rejected a health select committee recommendation to ban cigarette displays in stores. Many supermarkets already put cigarettes out of sight and Cancer Society Marlborough's new health promotions co-ordinator, Corinne Payne, is urging other store owners to do the same.
"These carefully designed displays are powerful ways of raising brand awareness to our children, who are very aware of the displays and can often identify new cigarette pack designs and special offers after visiting the shops."
She said the average age people started smoking was 14 and removing the displays would reduce the number of young people taking up the habit. It would take away a temptation from those trying to quit, but was unlikely to have any effect on existing smokers.
Mrs Payne said Australia, Finland and Scotland were considering banning point-of-sale tobacco displays.
The Cancer Society of New Zealand funded research in 2008 which found 67 per cent of the 3750 surveyed supported banning the displays. Of those questioned who were smokers, 59 per cent supported the ban.
However, Blenheim dairy owners rejected claims that point of sales displays were a bad influence on children. Blenheim's High Street Dairy owner, Kaylene Herriott, said if children decided to smoke, that was their decision.
She said the cigarettes were at least a metre away from the lollies.
"It's stupid. I'm lost for words."
Burleigh Village Dairy owner Usha Ponnuchetty said tobacco needed to be displayed so customers knew what was on offer.
She said concerns about children seeing cigarettes and wanting to buy them were unfounded as children were usually only interested in lollies.
British American Tobacco (NZ) corporate and regulatory affairs manager Emilie Isaacs said the company supported retailers who said a ban on the display of tobacco products would have a significant impact on the viability of their businesses. She said tobacco was already highly regulated under the Smoke Free Environments Act.
Ms Isaacs said display bans posed serious security risks for retailers and were likely to advantage larger operators at the expense of smaller, independent businesses.
Action on Smoking and Health communications manager Michael Colhoun said the displays were a marketing tool for the tobacco industry.
"They can recruit new smokers and people who are trying to quit can often relapse," he said.
A 2008 Ministry of Health review on tobacco displays received 557 submissions. More than 80 per cent supported completely banning the displays. But the majority of retailers and all tobacco companies submissions preferred retaining the current restrictions, which included limiting displays to 100 packages and no counter-top displays.
It is understood Labour Associate Health spokesman Iain Lees-Galloway is preparing a private member's bill advocating the removal of tobacco displays.
- The Marlborough Express
