Hungary: Decree Bans Tobacco Shops from Hypermarkets and Petrol Stations

Source from:  Politics.hu  12/02/2013

Retail tobacco sales will be prohibited in retail outlets larger than 2,500sqm and at petrol stations from June of next year, according to a government decree published in the latest issue of official gazette Magyar Kozlony.

Shops at such locations may continue operating until May 30, 2014 under the decree.

Hungary introduced a state monopoly on retail tobacco sales last July with the stated aim of keeping the products away from children.

Zsolt Gyulay, the chief executive of the National Tobacco Trading Non-profit company, argued in response that the real reason behind the government's new restriction was the realisation that shops operating with a state concession outside the malls and petrol stations were making huge losses, and many were close to bankruptcy. The new restriction is in fact about redressing this imbalance caused by the law on tobacco concessions, he said.

Records show that 200 out of all 6,300 tobacco retail shops operating in shopping malls and petrol stations had captured 17 percent of sales, ahead of the about 2,500 shops that are virtually nearing bankruptcy. Enditem