July 16, 2009 - The Legislature earlier this year passed a ban on smoking in virtually all public places. It was to have gone into effect July 1, but opponents of the ban in late June filed petitions with an estimated 25,000 signatures to block the ban and force a vote. They needed 16,776 valid signatures to trigger the vote.
Earlier this month, however, a coalition of health advocates challenged almost 10,000 of the signatures. They identified about 25 flaws with the signatures, including the listing of unregistered voters, improper notarization, duplicate signatures and incomplete information.
Secretary of State Chris Nelson and three workers are checking the validity of 9,891 signatures on petitions that would force a 2010 vote on banning smoking in South Dakota bars and restaurants. On Wednesday, July 15th Nelson wouldn't speculate on when the job will be done or comment on how many signatures have been invalidated so far. State workers are about 40 percent of the way through a list of disputed signatures on the smoking ban petitions. Nelson said, "This is a very tedious process."
If the challenge is successful, Nelson said he assumes smoking in bars and restaurants across the state will become illegal. Nelson: "Hypothetically, the law would go into effect immediately." He added that he and Attorney General Larry Long would have to decide exactly how to implement the law if the challenge is successful. "This is unchartered territory, and we are not sure how things will unfold," Nelson said.
If the challenge is successful, opponents of the ban still could delay it by filing a lawsuit, Nelson said. Larry Mann, who coordinated the petition drive, said he isn't sure whether his group would go to court. "I have met with clients, and we have said we will probably need to think about what our next step might be, but right now we are waiting," he said.
Darrin Smith, a senior director for the American Heart Association and a steering committee member for the South Dakota Tobacco Free Kids Network, said his group is waiting to hear how many signatures are tossed out. Depending on that decision, we'll see where we're at and go from there. He added that his group has not discussed filing a lawsuit.
Reference: Petition challenge creates 'tedious process' for state Verification task 40 percent done, Meredith Moriak, ArgusLeader.com, 7/16/2009.
Related news briefs: South Dakota - anti-smoking leaders challenge petition..; South Dakota - smoking ban to start July 1, 2009 may be delayed..; South Dakota - opponents try to stop extended smoking ban..; South Dakota - extends smoking ban effective July 1, 2009...
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July 16, 2009 - On Sunday July 19, 2009 a year-old ban on indoor public smoking will be widened to include bars, restaurants, and even smoky, hazy village coffeehouses and hookah bars, despite protests from owners who fear it will bring ruin to businesses already suffering from the effects of an economic crisis. The ban already covers offices, public transport and shopping malls.
Turkey's government is setting up a 4,500-strong team to help enforce an upcoming no-smoking ban in bars, restaurants and coffeehouses in this country of heavy smokers, a Health Ministry official said Thursday, July 16th.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government is keen to reduce smoking rates and the effects of second-hand smoke on people's health. He insists the battle against cigarette usage is as crucial as the "struggle against terrorism." Prime Minister Erdogan is now the driving force behind the next phase of a popular ban taking effect on July 19, which aims to curb the habit in a country where 22 million people, including around half the adult male population, smoke. (Smoke like a Turk?’ Not after looming ban But unlike in 17th-century Istanbul, violators won't be executed, MSNNBC - Reuters, 7/16/2009)
A Health Ministry official said the force would carry out surprise checks on bars, restaurants and coffeehouses where men traditionally pass time lighting up, drinking tea or coffee and playing backgammon and card games. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government rules barring civil servants from speaking to journalists without prior authorization.
Around 1,000 inspectors will be assigned to monitor bars, cafes and restaurants in Turkey's three largest cities - Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, while the rest will be scattered around other parts of the country. The official said the number of inspectors could be increased in the future.
Patrons breaking the ban will be fined 69 Turkish Lira ($45; euro32), while owners who do not enforce the ban could be fined between 560 and 5,600 Turkish Lira ($366-$3,660; euro260-euro2,600).
More than 100,000 people die annually in Turkey from smoking-related illnesses, according to official figures. "To smoke like a Turk" is a common expression in many European countries to describe someone who smokes a lot.
Enforcing smoking bans has proven difficult in the country where, according to Yesilay, an organization devoted to fighting alcohol and tobacco consumption, around 40 percent of Turks over the age of 15 are smokers, consuming around 17 million packs a day.
Davut Kaya, the owner of a smoke-filled coffeehouse in Ankara's Dikmen neighborhood, says he fears for his business. "Ninety percent of my customers are smokers. They come here to get rid of their stress by smoking and playing cards. I cannot see them going outdoors to smoke every 10 minutes. They will stop coming here," he said.
Reference: 4,500-person team to enforce Turkish smoking ban, Suzan Fraser, Associated Press - Ankara, 7/16/2009.
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July 16, 2009 - Australia - South Eastern Sydney and Illawarra Area Health Service (SESIAHS) was formed in 2005 from the amalgamation of the Illawarra Area Health Service and South Eastern Sydney Area Health Service. It is a statutory body (written law set down by a legislature) of the New South Wales (NSW) Government, operating under the New South Wales Department of Health, charged with the provision of public health services in eastern and southern Sydney. One of the major facilities is the Southern Hospital Network where Wollongong Hospital is one of its facilities.
In March 2008 as part of NSW Health's Smoke Free Workplace Policy, a smoking ban went into effect for all South Eastern Sydney Illawarra Health premises including hospitals, community health centers and car parks. Patients and visitors to Wollongong Hospital were left with no doubt about the directive as six signs of varying descriptions were placed at the Crown St entrance, a traditional hangout for smokers.
The problem there is no enforcement of the smoking ban to protect patients and visitors to the region's health facilities. Defiant smokers vs young cancer patient by Angela Thompson, IllawarraMercury.com.au, 7/15/2009. Young Cancer Patient..
The NSW health minister is standing by a plan to rid cigarettes from hospital grounds by monitoring the number of smokers who disobey no smoking signs. The Opposition branded the study a "total cop-out", and called for NSW Health's smoke-free policy to be enforced by fines, a spokesman for John Della Bosca's (represents the Australian Labor Party in NSW) office told the Mercury the problem was in hand.
Reference: Govt criticised for sticking to smoking strategy by Angela Thompson, IllawarraMercury.com.au, 7/16/2009.
Click on image to enlarge; Butts piled up beneath a no-smoking sign at Wollongong Hospital.
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July 16, 2009 - GREENSBORO, N.C., - Lorillard, Inc., the third largest manufacturer of cigarettes in the United States, today announced that it will release second quarter 2009 earnings on Monday, July 27, 2009.
A conference call for analysts and investors will begin at 10:00 am Eastern Time on July 27, 2009 which will be hosted by Martin L. Orlowsky, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and David H. Taylor, Executive Vice President, Finance and Planning and Chief Financial Officer. Investors can participate in the conference call by dialing (888) 679-8038 (domestic) or (617) 213-4850 (international). The passcode for this event is: 39001786.
The news release and a live webcast of the conference call will also be available under the Investor Relations part of Lorillard's website at www.lorillard.com.
The conference will be available for replay in its entirety through August 3, 2009. If you wish to listen to the replay of this conference call, please visit Lorillard's website at www.lorillard.com or dial (888) 286-8010 (domestic) or (617) 801-6888 (international) and enter passcode: 37595225.
Reference: Lorillard to Release Second Quarter 2009 Results on Monday, July 27, 2009, SOURCE Lorillard, Inc., 7/15/2009.
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July 16, 2009 - The Pawtucket, R.I. police have charged the owner of a convenience store with offenses that include selling cigarettes that lacked a Rhode Island tax stamp and with counterfeiting the tax stamp.
We have previously reported that dishonest Rhode Island retailers often buy cigarettes from Virginia where the tax is just 30 cents, then scratch the Virginia name away and sell the cigarettes at Rhode Island prices, pocketing more than 2 bucks a pack. The state tax in Rhode Island on cigarettes is $3.46 a pack, the highest in the nation. (Rhode Island retailers finding ways to avoid paying tobacco tax..)
In this latest case Abdulkhalek Darwich, 40, of 48 Johnson St., pleaded not guilty in District Court Tuesday and was released pending a court appearance, according to Maj. Arthur Martins of the police. Darwich also was charged with receiving stolen goods and importation of cigarettes with intent to evade tax. The police said they used an informant and conducted surveillance on the One Stop Deli, 454 Pawtucket Ave. Investigators obtained search warrants after receiving information that stolen items were being sold at the store, they said.
Items confiscated via the warrants included personal care products and other household goods, electronic items and 10 cartons of cigarettes with Virginia and Massachusetts tax stamps. Investigators also found more than 70 cartons of cigarettes in a parked car belonging to the suspect, they reported, all with Virginia tax stamps.
Reference: Store owner charged with selling illegal cigarettes, Thomas J. Morgan, Projo 7 to 7 News Blog, 7/15/2009.
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July 15, 2009 - Japan has banned smoking from most public places, including many city streets, but one company has given refuge to the dwindling ranks of tobacco addicts -- by opening smokers-only cafes. Thick cigarette smoke wafts through the 'Cafe Tobacco' shops in the heart of Tokyo, filled with office workers and shoppers looking to take a quick puff, a habit increasingly frowned upon in a country long seen as a smokers' paradise.
Related brief: Japan - Tokyo smoking cafes, people with children, those under 20 NOT allowed..
"Nowadays smoking is considered an evil," said Tadashi Horiguchi, a board director of the coffee shop operator Towa Food Service Co, which recently opened its second smokers-only cafe in Tokyo and hopes to grow the business. "We want to provide an oasis for smokers," Horiguchi said as air purifiers overhead sucked up clouds of blueish smoke from the crowded cafe in Shimbashi, a bar-lined city district known as "salaryman town."
Outside, a red sign with a picture of a smoking cigarette drew more customers, about 600 a day according to the manager Kazuhiro Kawano.
Inhaling from his cigarette and sipping an iced coffee, Koki Takeda, a 24-year-old property salesman, said he was pleasantly surprised when he first saw the 'smokers only' sign outside, near a commuter railway station.
"I thought it's great," he said between drags from his cigarette. "Starbucks bans smoking, and many other coffee shops are non-smoking, or they have a limited number of smoking seats that are often occupied." Coming to the smokers-only cafe takes the shame out of lighting up, Kawano said. "You don't have to feel guilty here," he said, as he sat surrounded by other smokers, all of them aged over 20 as stipulated by a sign outside.
Official anti-smoking policies have reduced smoking rates in Japan, where the cigarette was once ubiquitous -- but many campaigners say much remains to be done to stamp out the cancer-causing habit. Japan's smoking rate is on the decline but still higher than in other developed countries, with some 40 percent of men and 13 percent of women lighting up, according to Japan Tobacco, the former government monopoly.
The central government has yet to pass any wide-scale smoking bans.
The 2002 Health Promotion Law says schools, hospitals, department stores and other public places must make efforts to protect clients from second-hand smoke, but there is no punishment for non-compliance.
Instead many local governments and institutions have taken anti-smoking measures themselves. Central Tokyo districts have prohibited or strongly discouraged smoking on the streets except for designated areas.
Smoking has also been banned in most Tokyo taxis since last year and in railway stations as of earlier this year. Many bars, cafes and restaurants, however, still have smoking sections, to the annoyance of health campaigners.
He argued that Japan's problem with high smoking rates stems from the government, which still owns about half of Japan Tobacco, the country's only cigarette maker with almost 100 brands on the market. Japanese law still stipulates the goal of a "healthy development" of the tobacco industry to generate income and for stable tax revenue -- a position Watanabe said contradicts World Health Organisation rules and is out of step with the public health policies of most other industrialised countries.
Japan Tobacco campaigns for "coexistence between smokers and non-smokers in public spaces" and has deployed at public events a so-called "SmoCar" camper truck equipped with air-purifiers and a deodoriser, to allow people to smoke.
Total cigarette sales fell five percent in Japan in the last fiscal year to March, but still came to 3.73 trillion yen (38 billion dollars), according to data from the private Tobacco Institute of Japan.
Cigarettes now carry warning labels, but they remain much cheaper in Japan than in most other developed countries, with a pack of 20 cigarettes selling for about three dollars.
Reference: Campaigners fume over Japan's smokers-only cafes by Miwa Suzuki, Agence France Presse (AFP), 7/14/2009.
Some more related news briefs - Japan: Japan - Tokyo smoking cafes, people with children, those under 20 NOT allowed..; Japan - Kanagawa - bans smoking in public places starting April 2010..; Japan shelves tobacco tax hike for 2009.., Japan - Ruling party plans tobacco tax hike in 2009..; Japan Tobacco Starts Petition To Fight Tax Increase..; How to get most smokers to quit?? - Keep On Raising The Price..; Japanese lawmakers want to triple cigarette prices..; Japanese tobacco giants focus on point-of-sales cigarette purchases..; Japan - photos can be used to fool the age-verification cameras on some vending machines..; Vending Machines - Japanese protecting their children from becoming life-long nicotine addicts...
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July 15, 2009 - The smoking ban in Dutch cafes and restaurants has been partially suspended after a second appeal court - the Leeuwarden appeal court - ruled that the law does not apply to small cafes that do not employ staff.
Consequently, the Ab Klink, the Dutch health minister has temporarily halted enforcement of the smoking ban on possibly thousands of these smaller cafes run by their owners alone. Checks and fines imposed by the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority will cease until the law is changed, in what is seen as a public health "disaster."
The law remains in force for larger cafes that employ staff.
Mr Klink plans to amend the law, to remove any "lack of clarity" and to create a completely smoke-free hospitality industry "without exceptions." But this must first go before parliament and so cannot come into force until the third week in September.
(Holland, Netherlands, Dutch)
Reference: Legal loophole sees hundreds of Dutch cafes escape smoking ban, Tony Sheldon, BMJ 2009;339:b2824, 7/13/2009.
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July 15, 2009 - Smokers in Bavaria rejoiced on Wednesday, July 15th as the state’s parliament loosened the regulations on a smoking ban instituted 18 months ago.
January 1, 2008 eight German states are marking the new year by introducing smoking bans in public places including restaurants and bars. The eight states, Berlin, Bavaria, Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg Western Pomerania, Saxony-Anhalt and Schleswig-Holstein will join Lower Saxony, Baden-Württemburg and Hessen in the crackdown on smokers' freedoms. Saxony, Saarland and North Rhine-Westphalia will impose their smoking restrictions within the next two months, while Thuringia is introducing its ban in July 2008. Typically for Germany, many states will have their own particular variations. For example, Bavaria intoduced the strictest curbs, enforcing a ban in beer tents as well as pubs and restaurants -- resulting in a smoke-free Oktoberfest in 2008. And many states won't enforce fines for breaking the rules until a few months have passed. (German States to Ring in 2008 with Smoking Ban, Spiegel Online International, 12/31/2007)
From August 1, smokers will be allowed to puff away in pubs smaller than 75 square metres. Restaurants and beer tents that create smoking sections in side rooms will also be open to tobacco lovers. The health ministry may also allow smoking at establishments that can insure limited second-hand smoke with special ventilations systems. Children will not be admitted into the smoking areas.
The legislation has been roundly criticised by anti-smoking advocates, but many voters in the state were in favour of dropping the ban.
“The vast majority of the smoking clubs showed us that the previous law would fail,” Health Minister Markus Söder told news agency DDP. A loophole in the ban created a wave of members-only smoking clubs, but the new law no longer allows these.
Söder said that the new law reflects reality and Bavaria’s “live and let live” attitude.
While smoking was banned in bars and restaurants in most German states starting January 1, 2008, it has been widely flouted. For example, many bars in Berlin set ashtrays on the tables after dark. And legal exceptions in many states have weakened the smoking ban.
Six months after the ban began, top courts ruled against the restrictions in Berlin and Baden-Württemberg, allowing smoking in bars smaller than 75 square metres (807 square feet) where no food is served.
Many German smokers also responded by starting grassroots groups and petitions to roll back the ban.
Reference: Bavaria to filter smoking ban, The Local Germany's News in English, 7/15/2009.
Related news brief: WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008..; German sales rise in Germany amid moves to impose smoking ban..
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July 15, 2009 - Needham is a town in Norfolk County, in the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy metro area. (Needham is 10 miles southwest of Boston.)
On July 14th the Board of Health voted 2-0 on July 14th in favor of the ban, with one member absent. The ban will go into effect on October 1, 2009. This comes five months after Boston banned cigarettes from pharmacies. The new regulations also include language preventing the sale of non-cigarette tobacco products, including “blunt wraps,” to minors. Board of Health Chairman Stephen Epstein: “We found cigarette sales to be inconsistent with the mission of promoting health. At the same time, Boston proposed its regulations. We realized pharmacies are health-care institutions.”
The technical language in the ban states, “No health-care facility, per our regulations, located in the Town of Needham shall sell or cause to be sold tobacco products.” In addition, it specifically singles out pharmacies in saying, “Additionally, no retail establishment that operates or has a health-care facility within it, such as a pharmacy or drug store, shall sell or cause to be sold tobacco products."
The new regulations also include language specifically regulating the sale of tobacco products aside from cigarettes to minors. This includes “blunt wraps.” These wraps, which are designed to hold loose tobacco, are often made with tobacco and may be appealing to children, Epstein said. The new blunt wrap regulation in Needham only bans the sale to minors under 21, unlike Boston, which recently banned the sale of blunt wraps altogether.
“Some are flavored, colorful and are essentially aimed at kids,” Epstein said. “It’s something we wanted the new regulations to include.”
The Needham Health Department plans to work with schools to educate children about those products.
San Francisco has also banned the sale of tobacco products in pharmacies starting on October 1, 2008.
Reference: Needham bans cigarette sales in pharmacies by Steven Ryan, Wicked Local Needham, 7/14/2009.
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July 15, 2009
In the last C-store update on July 8th we reported that Philip Morris' (PM) new menthol Marlboro No. 54 cigarettes were a big seller, in fact, the c-store owners can't keep enough in stock and the wholesaler had limited distribution. It was felt that sales were probably strong because of the price was $2.42 a pack compared to Newport at $4.63 a pack (North Carolina>.
Now we find that the problem with the distribution was that there were problems in the manufacture of these cigarettes. But instead of extending the promotion period PM has ended it so prices have been returned to $4.42 a pack.
Marlboro 72s - the shorter Marlboro cigarettes are still a $1 off a pack. We still believe that Marlboro 72s are the same as Philip Morris International's Intense cigarettes..
In this one c-store PM is satisfied with the placement of their cigarettes (the t-set) and the moist snuff products (e.g., Skoal, Copenhagen) but not with the location of Black & Mild cigars. This c-store owner refuses to move these cigars so they are easier to view by patrons. As a result the owner is not eligible for the $30 monthly rebate.
Previous c-store update.,
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