Call for specialist retailers to be exempt from stringent tobacco bill restrictions

The government should exempt specialist tobacconists who do not sell products to anyone younger than 18 from some provisions contained in the new tobacco bill.

This is the plea by Diane Bravo, owner of specialist tobacco retailer Casa Tabacs.

Bravo made this comment after the health department tabled the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill in parliament late last year. Bravo said the bill introduces such onerous restrictions that it will force many small and micro businesses to close their doors, placing them and their employees at risk. 

The bill will ban the display of all tobacco products, including harm-reduction products such as e-cigarettes and vapes, at retail level, even in specialist tobacco stores.

The bill states that a retailer or wholesaler who offers for sale tobacco or related product may not display that product at his or her place of business, but may make the product available to consumers upon request, provided that the requester is not a child.

According to the new bill, penalties for displaying a single tobacco product, even if it was left on the counter inadvertently, will be a fine and/or 10 years in prison.  

Bravo said while the bill contained many absurd restrictions, the ban on displaying a legal tobacco product in a specialist tobacco store was tantamount to a complete ban on the sale of those products. 

“As a specialist tobacco retailer, I can’t imagine what my store would look like if I couldn't display any of the products that I sell. At the very least, the government should exempt specialist tobacconists who don’t sell products to anyone younger than 18,” Bravo said.

She said those who entered her stores only did so to buy tobacco products.

The bill will also introduce plain packaging, which meant that all packs of cigarettes, and other tobacco products, will look the same, with the same colour, typefaces, health warnings and pictures. 

Bravo said since this removed any brand differentiation and made it extremely easy to copy, it was going to worsen South Africa’s growing counterfeit product problem, thereby further entrenching criminality and depriving the fiscus of much-needed taxes.  

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