Boston bans cigarette sales in drug stores..

December 13, 2008 - Boston Public Health Commission, bans cigarette sales at drugstores (pharmacies) and on college campuses in the city and eliminates smoking on the patios of restaurants and bars with outside service. The restrictions, which would give Boston among the toughest anti-smoking laws in the nation, will go into effect in 60 days. Cigar bars and other swank salons devoted to smoking won a significant though temporary reprieve from Boston health regulators today, December 11, 2008 when it was decided that the establishments will face extinction in 10 years instead of the five-year grace period originally proposed as part of sweeping new tobacco control rules.

At the end of the 10-year period, smoking bars may ask the executive director of the health commission for a further grace period, the commission decided. The city now has six cigar bars and five hookah lounges - no new ones will be permitted to open.

"Cigarettes are bad, they're harmful to people, there's a need for us to change the social norms around cigarettes," said commission member Harold Cox, an associate dean at the Boston University School of Public Health. "Our responsibility as governmental officials is to protect people."

Summary of Regulations including Blunt wraps will not be sold in Boston.., Boston Public Health Commission, 12/11/2008.

Reference: Boston bans cigarette sales in drug stores but delays cigar bar closings by Gideon Gil, Boston.com, 12/11/2008.

Related news brief: Boston To Ban Drugstore Tobacco Sales..

Earlier this year, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban tobacco sales at drug stories, saying selling cigarettes was out of place in stores devoted to health care products. Audit trail of events: Federal Judge Denies Bid To Stop San Francisco Pharmacy Tobacco Ban..; Philip Morris USA request stop in San Francisco's ban on tobacco sales by pharmacies..; San Francisco - cigarette sales rise sharply in c-stores..; San Francisco files brief to oppose bid by PM USA to block the banning of tobacco sales in pharmacies..; Philip Morris challenges San Francisco pharmacy tobacco ban..; Walgreen: San Francisco’s Tobacco Ban Is Unfair..; San Francisco - All Tobacco Products Banned in All Pharmacies..; San Francisco critical vote - bar tobacco sales pharmacies.. and SAN FRANCISCO Ban on tobacco at drug stores sought...
Read more...

C-store update John Middleton's Black & Mild Cigars..

December 13, 2008 - For $100 per quarter Philip Morris Tobacco (PM) wants c-stores to devote an entire store shelf to Black & Mild Cigar selections. (From the image you can see Imperial Tobacco/Altadis (Alliance Tobacco Distributor) gets a shelf for Phillies Cigars and does not pay anything.) Also, a new Black & Mild sign has to be displayed. Here's the view the patron at the checkout counter would have of the Black & Mild shelf - can you find it?? The cigar distributor has to be on the PM's approval list of distributors. Here's an ad that appeared in the Raleigh, NC News & Observer a few months back promoting their wine flavored cigar.

The 2 for $6.10 off cans of UST's Skoal and Copenhagen will end. Local to this store the owner will give a $1.00 off if 2-cans ($4.39 each NC) are purchased. Watch - Altria will tweak the UST's premium brands - Copenhagen and Skoal - to return these brands to some modest share growth., i.e. take market share back from Conwood's Grizzly..

The PM salesperson has indicated that PM will accept returns of Marlboro 72s. This is surprising because returns are almost never accepted for cigarettes and most moist snuff products.

What do you think?? Are PM's Marlboro 72s and Philip Morris International's (PMI) Marlboro Intense the same product. The idea behind both is to appeal to customers who, due to indoor smoking bans, want to dash outside for a quick nicotine hit but don't always finish a full-size cigarette. Both cigarettes are shrunk down by about a half inch - 7.2cm long and shorter than the standard 8.5cm cigarette. The test marketing of Marlboro Intense began in November 2007 in Turkey. Pointing to his lit Intense, the PMI CEO André Calantzopoulos says there are "possibly 50 markets that are interested in deploying it."

Previous C-store update..

TobacoWatch.org
Read more...

Bulgaria Enters 2009 with Cigarette Prices Hike..

December 12, 2008 - Prices for cigarettes produced by Bulgaria's Bulgartabac Holding are to increase by 26 percent starting in January 2009 due to higher excise duty, the company's managing director, Korneliya Ninova, recently announced.

The most popular Victory packs will cost BGN 3.45 (USD 2.36, EUR 1.76) instead of the current BGN 2.75 (USD 1.88, EUR 1.40). Melnik will be the most costly Bulgarian brands - BGN 2.90 (USD 1.98, EUR 1.48). A price of BGN 3.15 (USD 2.16, EUR 1.61) will be introduced for largely smoked Sredetz packs.

Contraband cigarettes account for 15-20 percent of the market in Bulgaria (May 2008) - contraband usually increases in cases of price hikes.

The move is expected to get many inveterate smokers round to quit their unhealthy habit.The smoking prevalence in Bulgaria is high, about 50% of the adult population according to 2005 figures, and smokers in Bulgaria tend to smoke, on average, more than 20 cigarettes a day, making them one of the most prolific smoking groups in Europe. (Cigarette smoking in Bulgaria - the latest numbers by Petar Kostadinov, the Sofia Echo, 5/30/2008)

Bulgaria’s entry to the EU in January 2007 saw the local monopoly, Bulgartabac, strongly decline. Open gates to foreign giant cigarette brand raids left Bulgartabac in a hopeless defensive position. British American Tobacco Bulgaria EOOD (BAT) and Philip Morris Services Bulgaria EOOD (PM) grabbed shares with cheap well-established foreign brands.

Cigarette maker Bulgartabac registered a 50,59% increase in sales revenue in the first nine months of 2008 compared to the same period of 2007. The total amount of the increase in sales revenue for this period is BGN 14,102 M. At the same time the total net revenue of the company in January-September, 2008, amounted to BGN 54,344 M. However, much of the revenue came from the sale of two of the monopoly's four cigarette plants located in the cities of Plovdiv and Stara Zagora. The two factories were sold on the Sofia Stock Exchange in July in order to restructure the company and to consolidate the production in the cities of Sofia and Blagoevgrad.

Reference: Bulgaria Enters 2009 with Cigarette Prices Hike, Novinite - Sofia News Agency, 11/28/2008.

More on Bulgaria and Tobacco: World Tobacco - Eastern Europe - EU expansion offers opportunities and challenges; Euromonitor: Tobacco in Bulgaria.
Read more...

Philip Morris raises some U.S. cigarette prices..

December 12, 2008 - Philip Morris USA, a unit of Altria Group Inc., the largest U.S. cigarette maker, raised prices on some of its brands and made adjustments in its promotional spending that could result in higher prices for top-selling Marlboro in some markets. Parliament, Virginia Slims, Chesterfield and Merit were raised by 5 cents a package. It also cut certain promotional allowances on Marlboro and Basic cigarettes by 5 cents per pack, Philip Morris spokesman David Sylvia said.

But in other markets, the company increased special promotional allowances on certain types of Marlboro offerings, which could result in lower prices in those markets. Philip Morris gives retailers and distributors promotional allowances that tend to be passed on to consumers in the form of higher or lower cigarette prices, although such price changes are not automatic.

The price increases were "relatively modest and in-line with our view that only a modest net price increase to the manufacturers is likely for 2009," Goldman Sachs tobacco analyst Judy Hong said. in a research note. Also on Thursday, December 11, 2008, Hong downgraded her view on the tobacco sector to "neutral" from "attractive," saying a likely increase in the federal excise tax in cigarettes could lead to a 7 percent decline in industry-wide volume in 2009.

Rising unemployment could also cause some consumers to trade down to lower-priced cigarettes and also any price increases cigarette makers could take on top of the tax increase, Hong said.

Reference: Philip Morris raises some U.S. cigarette prices, Reuters, 12/11/2008.

Directly related news briefs: C-store update: Premium cigarette makers offering lots of promotions to keep customers..; SCHIP expansion legislation time to try again.. and Nik Modi, UBS analyst tobacco remains "economy resilient"...
Read more...

Japan - shelves tobacco tax hike for 2009..

December 12, 2008 - The Japanese government and the ruling parties decided Thursday, December 11, 2008 to shelve a plan to raise the tobacco tax, one of the key elements of tax reform for fiscal 2009, according to government sources. On December 2, 2008 we reported that the Japanese ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) planned to push for a tobacco tax hike for fiscal 2009 starting in April.

Following the decision, Prime Minister Taro Aso ordered Liberal Democratic Party Policy Research Council Chairman Kosuke Hori to find an alternative source of revenue to the tobacco tax hike. With the tax hike having been shelved, Aso faces the difficult task of finding an alternative way of boosting social security funding, observers say. The government had studied a possible tobacco hike as a stable revenue source to enable it to reduce cuts to the projected natural annual increases in social security spending. But the plan to raise the tobacco tax faced growing opposition from some LDP and New Komeito members that insisted there was no guarantee that the tobacco tax hike would help boost tax revenue.

Reference: Japan shelves tobacco tax hike, The Yomiuri Shimbun, Asia News Network, 12/12/2008.

Related news briefs: 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.. and Japan Tobacco's (JTI) market share up in Japan in FY 2007 for 1st time since 1985...
Read more...