San Francisco critical vote - bar tobacco sales pharmacies..

July 29, 2008 - Stores promoting health shouldn't also be selling tobacco products.. Today, Tuesday July 29, 2008 the San Francisco's city board of supervisors will vote on whether to bar cigarette (all tobacco products) sales at pharmacies as of October 1, 2008, a measure Mayor Gavin Newsom modeled after similar bans already in force in Canada. May 10, 2008 news brief:
SAN FRANCISCO Ban on tobacco at drug stores sought..

A study by researchers at Yale University found that 82% of 1,000 California pharmacists surveyed and 72% of 988 adult consumers questioned support a ban of tobacco products at pharmacies. A tobacco ban measure in New York that would have applied to all pharmacies, including those in big retailer and supermarket outlets, foundered. January 16, 2008 - New York State Assemblyman Sam Hoyt has introduced a bill that would ban the sale of tobacco from pharmacies..

It is a tough call for retailers but a few big retailers already have given up cigarettes. Target Stores do not sell tobacco products. quit the sales habit in 1996 believing that new laws restricting cigarette sales made them too labor-intensive to dispense. The chain says the financial impact was minimal. Earlier this year Wegmans Food Markets Inc., a Northeastern-based food-store chain, discontinued sales because of "the destructive role smoking plays in health," Chief Executive Danny Wegman said at the time. Wal-Mart stopped selling cigarettes in its Canadian stores in 1994 as the provincial government of Ontario was adopting a law that would bar stores operating pharmacies from selling cigarettes, a ban seven other Canadian provincial governments later approved.

Grocery stores, drugstores, wholesale clubs and mass merchandisers accounted for 19% of tobacco sales in the U.S. last year, or at least $13 billion.

Reference: Drugstore Tobacco Sales Under Fire
San Francisco Vote To Tackle Cigarettes At Health Retailers by Ann Zimmerman, The Wall Street Journal, 7/29/2008.

Click on image to enlarge.. (TobaccoWatch.org)