Cigarettes whisked out of sight
- Thread starter Reuters
- Start date
Cigarette rules show laws have no reservations
By Connie Woodcock
The checkout clerks at my local supermarket were in a bad mood leading up to June 1. They were rehearsing for Ontario's new smoking regulations and they hate them.
"You could lose your job really easily," one told me. "All it will take is one little mistake."
It seems the new Smoke Free Ontario Act, which went into effect June 1, involves more than just hiding cigarettes behind flip down covers. You have to be careful how much of the shelf you expose when you look for the right package. You have to make sure you don't pull out the drawers where the cartons are stored too far in case a passing child spots the evil things and is instantly hooked for life.
The supermarket chain provided the girls with a big binder full of its own regulations. Now the girls have to ask every customer, not just the young ones, for government photo identification.
The province's penalties for breaking the rules are so stiff -- fines start at $10,000 for the first offence and jump up to $100,000 for the third -- that the girls face instant dismissal if they goof.
So just before the new rules came into effect, they asked the boss to take the cigarettes out altogether. Complying with the law is just too difficult for them. The boss is still making up his mind.
Of course, these clerks don't care because even though many of them smoke, they seldom buy cigarettes in their own store -- only if they run out and can't get to the smoke shacks on the reserve 15 miles away.
Around the corner at Mac's Milk, it was much the same. "I don't know how anyone will know we sell cigarettes," said the clerk as she wrestled with the cover hiding the smokes. Convenience store operators face real financial hardship since many depend on cigarette sales to survive.
But in Ontario, about a third of all smokers are already buying contraband cigarettes from First Nations. In my community, cigarette sales are lousy because no one in their right mind will pay $90 or more a carton when they can buy the contraband equivalent for as little as $12.
I wondered how my local reserve smoke shacks were reacting to the Smoke Free Ontario Act so off I went on a rainy Sunday afternoon, cash in hand.
Butts in the open
Surprise, surprise. It was business as usual. There were the cartons displayed on open shelves behind the counter above the piles of plastic bags containing the really cheap stuff. And there were the customers, lined up as usual. The woman ahead of me bought nine cartons while her husband waited in the lineup outside to gas up at eight cents a litre less than it was up the road at the non-native station. The kid next to her bought a $12 bag. He didn't look 19, but no one asked his age.
Back in early May, federal Justice Minister Stockwell Day and the RCMP announced a crackdown on contraband cigarettes. They were going to target the reserves where the bulk of the cigarettes are produced -- Six Nations, Akwesasne and Tyendinaga in Ontario and Kahnawake and Kanesatake, in Quebec.
Amusingly, the minister pleaded with Canadians to do the right thing and stop buying illegal tobacco. Yeah, right. That'll really work, won't it? The government can't even get help from the Americans because they're reportedly not interested.
And so far, nothing much else appears to have happened. The piles of cigarette cartons are as big as ever and the lineups at least as long. Nope, for the people who run Nan's Smokin' Coffee drive-through, the ironically named Smoke's Smokes and all the others lining the road through the reserve, life goes on and the money continues to roll in.
Oh but the new laws will really mess up the big manufacturers, right. Nope. Rothmans announced last month its annual profits are up a whopping 18% even though it shipped less tobacco.
Harassing retail clerks and putting corner store operators out of business helps no one. Unless and until governments are ready to raid the big reserves and shut down the illegal manufacturing -- which you can be pretty sure they won't do since it will mean open warfare and likely many deaths -- nothing is going to happen.
Smoke-free Ontario indeed.
By Connie Woodcock
The checkout clerks at my local supermarket were in a bad mood leading up to June 1. They were rehearsing for Ontario's new smoking regulations and they hate them.
"You could lose your job really easily," one told me. "All it will take is one little mistake."
It seems the new Smoke Free Ontario Act, which went into effect June 1, involves more than just hiding cigarettes behind flip down covers. You have to be careful how much of the shelf you expose when you look for the right package. You have to make sure you don't pull out the drawers where the cartons are stored too far in case a passing child spots the evil things and is instantly hooked for life.
The supermarket chain provided the girls with a big binder full of its own regulations. Now the girls have to ask every customer, not just the young ones, for government photo identification.
The province's penalties for breaking the rules are so stiff -- fines start at $10,000 for the first offence and jump up to $100,000 for the third -- that the girls face instant dismissal if they goof.
So just before the new rules came into effect, they asked the boss to take the cigarettes out altogether. Complying with the law is just too difficult for them. The boss is still making up his mind.
Of course, these clerks don't care because even though many of them smoke, they seldom buy cigarettes in their own store -- only if they run out and can't get to the smoke shacks on the reserve 15 miles away.
Around the corner at Mac's Milk, it was much the same. "I don't know how anyone will know we sell cigarettes," said the clerk as she wrestled with the cover hiding the smokes. Convenience store operators face real financial hardship since many depend on cigarette sales to survive.
But in Ontario, about a third of all smokers are already buying contraband cigarettes from First Nations. In my community, cigarette sales are lousy because no one in their right mind will pay $90 or more a carton when they can buy the contraband equivalent for as little as $12.
I wondered how my local reserve smoke shacks were reacting to the Smoke Free Ontario Act so off I went on a rainy Sunday afternoon, cash in hand.
Butts in the open
Surprise, surprise. It was business as usual. There were the cartons displayed on open shelves behind the counter above the piles of plastic bags containing the really cheap stuff. And there were the customers, lined up as usual. The woman ahead of me bought nine cartons while her husband waited in the lineup outside to gas up at eight cents a litre less than it was up the road at the non-native station. The kid next to her bought a $12 bag. He didn't look 19, but no one asked his age.
Back in early May, federal Justice Minister Stockwell Day and the RCMP announced a crackdown on contraband cigarettes. They were going to target the reserves where the bulk of the cigarettes are produced -- Six Nations, Akwesasne and Tyendinaga in Ontario and Kahnawake and Kanesatake, in Quebec.
Amusingly, the minister pleaded with Canadians to do the right thing and stop buying illegal tobacco. Yeah, right. That'll really work, won't it? The government can't even get help from the Americans because they're reportedly not interested.
And so far, nothing much else appears to have happened. The piles of cigarette cartons are as big as ever and the lineups at least as long. Nope, for the people who run Nan's Smokin' Coffee drive-through, the ironically named Smoke's Smokes and all the others lining the road through the reserve, life goes on and the money continues to roll in.
Oh but the new laws will really mess up the big manufacturers, right. Nope. Rothmans announced last month its annual profits are up a whopping 18% even though it shipped less tobacco.
Harassing retail clerks and putting corner store operators out of business helps no one. Unless and until governments are ready to raid the big reserves and shut down the illegal manufacturing -- which you can be pretty sure they won't do since it will mean open warfare and likely many deaths -- nothing is going to happen.
Smoke-free Ontario indeed.
That $90/ctn versus $12/ctn (though the spread seems a bit exaggerated) speaks highly for the government cut.
Vee musst burn ze books, also, you know.
Sieg heil !!!
Hell's bells, hundreds of thousands of kids going hungry and they spend a bunch on a witch-hunt for smokers. Gotta love people's priorities.
Sieg heil !!!
Hell's bells, hundreds of thousands of kids going hungry and they spend a bunch on a witch-hunt for smokers. Gotta love people's priorities.
It's called target fixation. Government is so obsessive-compulsive it can't see beyond the agenda of the day.
Well if the damn smokers would just die faster when they got cancer, maybe the kids wouldn't have to go hungry while the gov spends all its money on health care.
The sad part is, I don't know if I'm being sarcastic or not.
Geez ... I thought the whole idea was if they hid cigarettes from kids, then kids wouldn't know stores sold cigarettes....
What happens if the cancer comes from eating smoked meats, or breathing industrial waste, or handling known (now) carcinogens. Smoking is just the easy one to blame.
I heard of an economic study conducted in Finland on this topic. The study concluded that smokers cost the public less. It stands to reason. We all have to die or be hospitalized terminally from something, sooner or later. And since more smokers fall on the sooner side they also collect less government pension.
My mom is 88. She has never smoked. She collects her pensions and visits the doctor or some specialist at least once or twice a month. My dad, a smoker, died a long time ago. There is no doubt in my mind who has been the more costly burden on society.
I object to this act of violence from the government.
It amazes me that as a so called "free" society we would put up with this brutality.
It amazes me that as a so called "free" society we would put up with this brutality.
This ban is a result of the overzealous control of Canadian governments. My main issue now is that my store owners can't even pronounce Gauloises let alone know what the package looks like, I usually end up pointing to my brand.. that won't work anymore.
Seems the main agenda of our Gov't is to keep contraversial crap in the forefront while they fulfill their real agendas...like passing gun laws that allow them to enter any house at any time and removing other freedoms. Go to Vancouver...you can't smoke there, but you can shoot up!
It's a ball Harris started rolling and the born-again non-smokers adopted as their Church.
Woof!