Smoking ban could save customers’ life

Noushin Pourjahani, one of the owners of Cafe Kebab, is not sure how to accept the new antismoking legislation, as a good one or a bad. She thinks that smoking ban could cost her business a significant amount of money, but it could help deter people from the unhealthy habit.

"I think tobacco and cigarettes aren’t good for people and I don’t like having them in view in the store. But it’s difficult because it’s going to mean some big changes to our shelves and we will lose profit," said Pourjahani.

Pourjahani sign on the chalkboard "best price cigarettes" outside Cafe Kebab will have to be removed.

"People coming into our store, once this takes effect, might not realize we sell tobacco products and might not think to ask," Pourjahani said. "That’s going to hurt us financially. Also, we will lose the advertising fee paid to us by tobacco companies."

The Health Minister, Mike Murphy, sustains: "These displays are sometimes referred to as power walls. Cigarettes and other tobacco products will have to be kept in a drawer, under the counter or in another part of the store that cannot be seen by customers."

Steve Tennant of the Canadian Convenience Stores Association said that many stores, including Cafe Kebab, don’t have room under their counters to hide tobacco products.

"If they go with something similar to P.E.I., it will be less costly because stores could simply place flaps over their displays," Tennant said. "If they go with something stricter, like in Nova Scotia, it could be a much harder change for some businesses."

But the health benefits outweigh those costs to businesses, according to Ken Maybee.

The president of the New Brunswick Lung Association Ken Maybee, said that 1,200 New Brunswickers die every year because of the effects of tobacco. But he thinks that making the tobacco product less visible and less acceptable will save lives, health-care dollars and prevent disease.

"Stronger legislation against all forms of tobacco promotion can only weaken the tobacco industry’s ability to recruit the 123 replacement smokers needed to fill the shoes of those who die each day in Canada because of smoking-related illnesses," Maybee said.

Maybee said this new legislation, combined with the provincial government’s lawsuit against major tobacco companies for costs associated with tobacco-related illnesses and deaths, makes New Brunswick a leader in the fight against smoking.

The ban on tobacco advertising outside of stores is expected to take effect in Jan. 1, 2009 in New Brunswick.