Youth Target Tobacco "Power Walls"

Source from:  newhamburgindependent.ca (Aug 15, 2007)  08/17/2007

Armed with more than 1,000 signatures and handfuls of brochures, local youth have been going store to store over the past month to get tobacco retailers to take down their tobacco power wall displays. Power walls are the displays of cigarette packages and other tobacco products usually found behind the counters at convenience stores, gas stations and some grocery stores. The youth, who are employed as peer leaders with Youth Acting for Change on Tobacco (Y-ACT) and TOXIK, two Youth Action Alliance groups from Region of Waterloo Public Health, want to raise awareness about the effects of power wall displays on youth. The groups are funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion's Smoke-Free Ontario Campaign. They say their aim is not to target smokers, but to prevent other youth and children from starting to smoke. "Seventy-seven per cent of youth visit a convenience store at least once a week and 73 per cent of teens say they've been influenced by promotional pieces in convenience stores," said Danielle Deville, a 17-year-old youth from Kitchener. "We believe these tobacco displays play a large role in youth's decisions to buy cigarettes," said Deville. Usually situated right above displays of candy, Deville said tobacco displays portray tobacco as a normal, everyday product. She said youth's awareness of cigarette brands increase with the frequency of convenience store visits. "We know that getting retailers to take down their power wall displays is an uphill battle", said Eliot Winkler a 16-year-old member of Y-ACT. The tobacco industry pays retailers an estimated $75 million to display their products in the most prominent place in the store, he said. The Smoke-Free Ontario Act will require tobacco retailers to remove all tobacco industry products from view by May 31, 2008. The two local youth groups plan to recognize businesses that take down at least 50 per cent of these displays before Aug. 31. In addition to targeting tobacco retailers, the youth groups plan to recognize other business for going beyond what the Smoke-Free Ontario Act requires. They will award local businesses with a Breathe Easy: Tobacco-Free Initiative Award. There are three awards: the Retail Award for retailers that remove or cover at least 50 per cent of cigarette packages from customers; the Helping Hand Award for employers that provide support to employees to quit smoking; and the Healthy Environment Award for employers that make at least one policy change to support smoke-free environments for employees. Nomination forms are due by Aug. 31. They can be found at www.region.waterloo.on.ca/ph. For more information, call the Tobacco Information Line at 519-883-2279 (press option 4). Enditem