NEW YORK -- In a tobacco triple play, New York City lawmakers passed legislation that would raise taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products, cut the number of retailers who can sell tobacco and ban pharmacies from selling the category altogether, according to the New York Daily News.
In the bill passed Aug. 9, city council members raised the minimum price of a pack of cigarettes to $13 from $10.50, and tacked on a 10% tax increase on tobacco products other than cigarettes.
The move was the next step in a plan that Mayor Bill de Blasio outlined earlier in the year; the city’s health department said the plan would cut the number of smokers by 160,000 by 2020. De Blasio is expected to sign the legislation, which would go into effect about nine months after his signature, according to Addison, Texas-based halfwheel.com.
The law would also ban cigarette sales in pharmacies and cut in half the number of retailers licensed to sell tobacco products—a number the news source placed at 9,000—over the next 10 years through attrition. The Daily News said the legislation would also extend to electronic cigarettes.
“As bargain cigarettes are forced to increase prices, we speculate that premium brands may increase their prices too to maintain separation from the lower tier of the market,” Department of Health spokesman Christopher Miller told the newspaper.
James Calvin, president of the New York Association of Convenience Stores, Albany, N.Y., said the new regulations miss some major points about tobacco retailing. “These measures will destroy the business investment of retailers who have been leading the effort to prevent youth access to tobacco products," he said. "The result will be lost revenue, lost jobs and an increasing number of sales in unregulated and illegal settings.”
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