Dairy and convenience store owners are asking the government for time to adapt before new curbs on sale of cigarettes put their livelihoods on the “chopping board”.
The Labour government is expected to outline a plan in the coming days to slash the number of cigarette retail points across the country to 600.
Sunny Kaushal of Dairy and Business Owners Group says “only God knows” how the government could think of such a dramatic reduction.
“Here we are in June 2023, 12 months out from a 90 per cent reduction in outlets next year, and we still don’t know how these 600 stores will be selected,” says Kaushal, the group’s chair. “The best guess is we’ll know sometime in August, with decisions coming from October.”
Reducing availability of cigarettes is a part of the government’s ‘Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 Action Plan’, which aims to reduce daily smoking rates to less than five per cent across all population groups by 2025.
Other measures include banning anyone born 2009 or later to ever be able to buy tobacco products, besides reducing addictiveness, in part by limiting nicotine levels in cigarettes.
Kaushal’s group is calling for the reduction in retail outlets to be implemented only by late 2026, with rules on lower nicotine products rolling out in the months leading up.
“There are 380,000 smokers currently, and it will be a huge shock as almost all have no idea of what’s coming. Communication has been terrible. That’s why selling low nicotine products is needed, and then ensuring a maximum number of outlets before low nicotine products are sold exclusively by the lucky 600,” Kaushal says.
He points out even if the government were to extend the transition time, not all businesses will be able to diversify sufficiently to survive.
“Some can make it, but quite a few others are facing full closure. We are working towards a plan to help owners diversify their business model and replace their incomes to some extent,” he says.
Business owners are lobbying not just for a grace period, but also making a final push to explore how the legislation can be less damaging.
“Vaping has upended cigarette sales and 154,000 Kiwis have quit smoking in just two years as a result,” Kaushal explains. “The reality is that smoking is a dying habit but crazily, dairies can’t actively sell vapes to smokers. If we could, and with a couple of regulated fruit flavours, we’d get New Zealand to smokefree by 2025,” he adds.
Dairy and neighbourhood stores rely heavily on cigarettes as the main revenue driver, and often also the reason why customers walk into their stores in the first place.
“Around 50 per cent of their revenue comes from sales of cigarettes and tobacco. And whosoever comes to buy those often also ends up purchasing milk, grocery and other products. That's how the business model has been operating over a century.”
Kaushal is picking on the legislation over security concerns. He points to the government’s nearly $2.2-billion annual earnings from cigarette sales.
“This business will now be distributed only among a tenth of the stores. It is not a health story, but a crime story…because those are the locations that will lead to all crimes like armed hold-ups…carjackings are going to come back,” Kaushal says.
He also points out the selection process for eligible stores could be unfair on a humanitarian level.
“For the 600 stores, it would be a lottery jackpot, right? And the other 5,400 are going on the chopping board, everything is going to be ruined.”