PELHAM, N.Y. -- John DeCicco Jr., vice president for operations of DeCicco Markets, said Friday that the company's grocery stores in Pelham, Bronxville, Scarsdale, New City and Jefferson Valley, N.Y., are selling off their inventory of cigarettes and other tobacco products and should be tobacco-free by April, said the Associated Press.
The chain's newest store, which opened last year in Ardsley, has never sold cigarettes, DeCicco said, "and it's been a big success." "We want to try to promote better health as much as possible. It's a moral decision as well in that we don't want to promote [image-nocss] underage smoking."
He said the family-owned chain would lose several thousand dollars a week in profit.
Rochester, N.Y.-based Wegmans Food Markets Inc., a much larger chain with 71 stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia and Maryland, announced last month it will stop selling tobacco products next week.
Both chains are family owned.
Russell Sciandra, tobacco policy specialist for the American Cancer Society, said not having to answer to shareholders makes ethical decisions a little easier. "We're hoping this is a trend that the publicly owned chains may have to follow," he said. He added that if fewer stores sell cigarettes, the inconvenience of finding them may prompt some smokers to quit.
Bill Phelps, a spokesperson for Phillip Morris USA, Richmond, Va., the nation's largest cigarette maker, refused comment.
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