Retailers seek deferral of tobacco display ban

Shopkeepers call for government to defer implementing the new legislation following the decision by Scotland to postpone its tobacco display ban

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Shopkeepers around Ireland are demanding that the government shelves its “ill-though out” tobacco display ban, as its implementation on schedule will prove of detrimental cost to retail businesses already under threat.

“More than a dozen small shopkeepers are going out of business every week, that’s an extra 7,000 people becoming unemployed a year,” said Vincent Jennings, chief executive of the Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association (CSNA). “The Government must do all it can to help small shops survive the current conditions.”

Furthermore, the CSNA outlined that the State is losing out on almost €1 million per day in lost excise duty, as one on four cigarettes bought in Ireland today is bought on the black market. “Illicit trade in tobacco is costing every shopkeeper in Ireland nearly €45,000 in lost revenue per year,” the association revealed. Jennings stated that the “very least” that could be done at this point is postponing the roll-out of the tobacco display ban.

The call came following the announcement that Scotland had become the latest jurisdiction to defer the implementation of the ban, until 2013 at the earliest, echoing the earlier decision of New Zealand.

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