State of Play (1st Feb 2011)

Now this has been on going for too long now, Supermarkets and Large Stores are supposed to be going Dark in October. That isn’t a racial slur, i promise you!

For those of you not aware of the display ban, that’s on the card ATM.

The UK Government in there former line up, proposed a Display Ban of ALL tobacco products. This includes; Tobacco (in all forms), Rolling Papers, Lighters, Pipes, Humidors, Cigar Cutters, Pipe Cleaners, Snuff Boxes and Matches. The original plan was for Large Stores and Supermarkets to start this in October 2011 while smaller stores and Independents get until 2012. The ban has already been implemented in N. Ireland, with negative results(increase in Black Market Sales-Less money for Government Coffers and also an increase in youth smoking.)

Devolution in Scotland has allowed there government to (attempt to) impliment the ban earlier. But this week has seen them again delay the date, Imperial tobacco is fighting a big case to resist this. The case should be over by October.

Both members of the coalition (Liberal Democrats and The Conservatives) said in opposition that they saw flaws with these laws. But so far they have announced nothing! Leaving retailers and supermarkets staring down the barrel of the ban. Specialists like us (Gauntleys) are even more worried, 95% of the shops business is tobacco and related products. The only way we can conform with the ban is to make the shop Over 18′s only and black out all the windows.

We had expected to hear by Christmas (2010), what the current government was going to do. But so far its fallen silent. We did hear rumors that plain white packs may be the alternative, but again nothing more has been said. I don’t really care if Supermarkets have to go dark, i don’t think anyone with a brain does.