Hidden cigarettes
Cigarettes will disappear from Ontario stores and gasoline station kiosks at the end of next month. Cigarettes will still be for sale. You just won’t see them. They will be hidden from view in overhead bins or in drawers under the counter.
A ban on cigarette power walls will take effect May 31. The walls, which display cigarettes from floor to ceiling, are the last place where cigarettes are seen in public.
Fifty years ago cigarettes and their brand names were everywhere. Cigarettes sponsored television and radio shows. They advertised in magazines, newspapers and on billboards. Cigarettes sponsored sporting and cultural events. Cigarette machines stood by the entrances of restaurants.
At one time, smoking was considered a normal activity. Today we know better. Few people today would argue smoking is purely a matter of choice.
Over the years, cigarette advertising has been restricted until its last bastion was the power wall - a display so overwhelming, usually behind stores’ front counters, that no customer, including children, could ignore it.
Power walls give the impression that cigarettes are an important product and an important part of sales. But, as Margarett Best, Minister of Health Promotion, says, it’s time to stop selling cigarettes next to Twizzlers and hockey cards.
Children who come into a store to buy gum or a Popsicle should not be exposed to a wall of cigarettes. So, Ontario’s ban makes sense.
The government should consider going easy on enforcement to give small stores a chance to install containers to hide cigarettes. New drawers or bins could cost up to $2,500.
The ban on cigarette power walls is another sign that Ontario is serious about health and helping prevent people from taking up smoking.
So, when will someone crack down on the hundreds of native smoke shops that sell one third of the cigarettes in Ontario? How can it be good for children to see their parents buying $10 plastic bags of cigarettes?
Where are the smoke shops’ cigarettes from? Who makes them and what’s in them?
A ban on cigarette power walls will take effect May 31. The walls, which display cigarettes from floor to ceiling, are the last place where cigarettes are seen in public.
Fifty years ago cigarettes and their brand names were everywhere. Cigarettes sponsored television and radio shows. They advertised in magazines, newspapers and on billboards. Cigarettes sponsored sporting and cultural events. Cigarette machines stood by the entrances of restaurants.
At one time, smoking was considered a normal activity. Today we know better. Few people today would argue smoking is purely a matter of choice.
Over the years, cigarette advertising has been restricted until its last bastion was the power wall - a display so overwhelming, usually behind stores’ front counters, that no customer, including children, could ignore it.
Power walls give the impression that cigarettes are an important product and an important part of sales. But, as Margarett Best, Minister of Health Promotion, says, it’s time to stop selling cigarettes next to Twizzlers and hockey cards.
Children who come into a store to buy gum or a Popsicle should not be exposed to a wall of cigarettes. So, Ontario’s ban makes sense.
The government should consider going easy on enforcement to give small stores a chance to install containers to hide cigarettes. New drawers or bins could cost up to $2,500.
The ban on cigarette power walls is another sign that Ontario is serious about health and helping prevent people from taking up smoking.
So, when will someone crack down on the hundreds of native smoke shops that sell one third of the cigarettes in Ontario? How can it be good for children to see their parents buying $10 plastic bags of cigarettes?
Where are the smoke shops’ cigarettes from? Who makes them and what’s in them?
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09:00:15
