US: Anti-tobacco Coalition Wants Store Displays Banned for Cigarettes

Source from:  The Daily News  11/15/2012

It may have seemed a long shot a decade ago, when anti-tobacco advocates pressed the state to ban smoking inside restaurants, bingo halls and other public places.

But that law, effective July 2003, has gained wide approval and support from New Yorkers. It also has advocates optimistic about new initiatives to battle a public health menace that kills 25,000 New Yorkers a year and jacks up health care costs by about $6 billion annually.

"We've done a lot in New York, we have a lot to be proud of, but there are still too many people smoking," said Hillary Clark, advocacy director for the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network.

State Sen. George Maziarz said debate over the indoor smoking ban legislation was among the most heated in his 18-year career. He received many angry letters from business owners. But a year after the ban, Maziarz said some of those same people contacted him to voice their support of the legislation.

Their businesses endured, and the restaurant owners and their employees were no longer subjected to cigarette smoke at work, Maziarz said Tuesday during a public forum about the impact of tobacco marketing.

Clark praised New York for enacting some of the highest cigarette taxes in the country. The price of cigarettes, now about $8 per pack, deters many from even starting the habit.

Tobacco companies also have been kicked off television for advertising their products. However, the companies have very attractive store displays that continue to draw the interest of children, Clark said during the forum on Tuesday organized by Smoke Free NOW and the Genesee-Orleans Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse.

The Cancer Action Network wants tobacco displays banned in stores. The products would still be available, but they wouldn't be viewable to store customers, especially children.

Clark also wants to limit tobacco retailers. Those products shouldn't be readily available near schools, youth facilities and so close to other tobacco merchants, she said.

Her organization also is pressing pharmacies to stop selling tobacco. Many independent pharmacies have already voluntarily ceased selling the products.

The local anti-tobacco advocates cited the example of the Province of Ontario, which not only instituted the indoor smoking ban, but in 2008 prohibited in-store tobacco displays. Adults also were banned from smoking inside a car with a child under age 16, said Joanne DiNardo, senior manager of public issues for the Canadian Cancer Society, Ontario Division.

Ontario's tobacco crackdown has nearly cut the province's smoking rate in half, from 30 percent of citizens 15 and older in 1999 to 16 percent in 2011. The province reports that only 9 percent of youths, ages 15 to 19, were smoking in 2011.

Kevin Keenan, the Smoke Free NOW project coordinator, urged community members to keep up the fight against tobacco products. He wants to see the state follow Ontario's lead and ban tobacco displays inside stores.

"The tobacco industry is using colors and flavors to lure kids," Kennan said during the forum at the Hoag Library. "Cigarettes are packaged in a similar way as candy." Enditem