A ban on the sale and manufacture of flavoured cigarettes starting today will have a significant impact on business, but not nearly as much as last Thursday’s introduction of the HST, local merchants say.
“A lot of the newer flavoured cigarettes don’t have filters, and some people just aren’t used to that, so sales (of flavoured cigarettes) have decreased already,” said Myung Myim of Dodi Market on Davie Street.
She added that teenagers try to purchase flavoured cigarettes all the time, but she said she believes her emporium’s reputation for consistently checking IDs has deterred prospective underage buyers.
The federal government has decreed that flavour-infused cigarettes, including Prime Time, Bullseye and fruit-flavoured smokes, are a “gateway” drug for future smokers. The new legislation is part of a larger crackdown on tobacco.
The ban does not apply to menthol cigarettes, which account for a much greater percentage of the average retailer’s bottom line than fruit, vanilla, candy and other saccharine flavours of smokes.
