The familiar sight of rows of cigarettes behind the cash register in
local stores and gas stations is no longer allowed in Saskatchewan.
The province proclaimed the Tobacco Control Act March 11. It bans the
display and promotion of tobacco products in places where youth can go.
Retailers were busy last weekend hanging curtains, installing cabinets
and even stretching plastic garbage bags over their displays to comply
with the new law.
The act prohibits smoking in enclosed public places where children have
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access. Restaurants, bars, bingo halls, billiard halls, casinos and
bowling centres have until Jan. 1, 2004 to designate a minimum 60
percent non-smoking seating area.
The legislation increases the fines for retailers and employees who
sell tobacco to people under the legal smoking age of 18. A first
offence will result in a maximum fine of $3,000.
Retailer Don Morrison, who operates two Regina Esso stations, is
unhappy with another measure of the new legislation. Only
government-approved signs may be used to tell customers that they have
to be 18 to buy cigarettes.
That means the distinctive signs sponsored by the tobacco industry –
with a swatch of eye-catching lime green colour – have to go.
Several rural gas station operators contacted last week said they knew
nothing about the new signs.
Morrison said he is worried that the government-issue signs are not as
effective.
He also said Operation I.D., the tobacco industry program, is more
comprehensive. It includes a training program along with various signs
that repeat the message that minors cannot purchase tobacco. One of
them includes the year in which a customer had to be born in order to
be able to buy cigarettes.
“I will have no training tools for my staff,” Morrison said. “What’s
better than a slick training program? You need constant reminders.”
One of Morrison’s employees was charged with selling to a minor. The
charges were dismissed when the prosecutor saw all the Operation I.D.
training material Morrison had used.
“I need something to show due diligence,” he said.
Morrison said the problem could be worse in rural areas where employees
can be under pressure from their friends.
David Landry of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturing Council said the
government did not tell manufacturers that Operation I.D. was going to
be outlawed.
He said manufacturers are not worried that tobacco products now need to
be hidden.
But he is concerned about the expense retailers have to incur to cover
up displays. He also wonders about security if employees have to leave
cash registers to get cigarettes.
Health minister John Nilson has said the public supports the new law.
He said it focuses on making tobacco use the exception rather than the
rule.
“The Tobacco Control Act brings Saskatchewan’s tobacco control
initiatives in line with, and in some cases, ahead of, other Canadian
provinces,” he said in a release.
“The ban on display and promotion of tobacco products, for instance, is
at the forefront of tobacco control in Canada.”
