Like the U.S. electorate in the larger midterm elections a week earlier, the people of Westminster, Mass., made their displeasure known in mid-November with what they perceived to be an overreaching government, proving that all politics is local.
Citing medical factors such as health, disease and addiction concerns related to the effects of tobacco, and legal factors including underage access and the government’s duty to protect the public “by any rational means,” the Westminster Board of Health in mid-October proposed a ban—the first in the nation if it had been successful—on the sale of all tobacco products.
Fines would have included $300 for the first violation; $300 and suspension of board of health-issued permits for seven days for the second violation within 24 months; $300 and suspension of board of health-issued permits for 30 days for three or more violations within 24 months; and revocation of board of health-issued permits for further violations.
But at a raucous Nov. 12 public hearing held in a school gymnasium to accommodate the crowd of about 500 people, the owners of the northern Massachusetts town’s seven convenience stores and other retail outlets, backed by almost unanimous public sentiment, voiced loudly and enthusiastically their disapproval of the proposal, prompting board of health chairperson Andrea Crete to shut down the forum and leave with a police escort.
National Association of Tobacco Outlets (NATO) executive director Thomas Briant, who attended the event, said that when Crete opened the hearing, she cautioned the audience not to applaud after each speaker or to speak out of turn. As the testimony from residents began, the crowd applauded or shouted encouragement.
“When the crowd continued to exercise their right to show support for the person speaking by applauding, chairperson Crete announced that the public hearing was closed after just three people out of 70 who signed up to speak were allowed to testify,” Briant said.
He called the turnout and passionate opposition at the hearing “democracy in action” and a “civics lesson [that] demonstrated that freedom and the right to sell a legal product can overcome an agenda being advanced by a few elected officials who want to usher in a new era of prohibition.”
The following week, the board of health voted down the sales ban. Although Crete voted to keep it under consideration, board members Ed Simoncini and Peter Munro voted to kill the proposal.
“The town is not in favor of the proposal, and therefore I am not in favor of the proposal,” Simoncini told The Sentinel & Enterprise.
“We could have made Westminster tobacco- free in the sense children would have no exposure to tobacco at the stores,” Crete told The Boston Globe. She said that she regrets not doing a better job of communicating the proposal to citizens. “We didn’t want to stop people from smoking in private, but unfortunately that’s the way it came off.”
Brian Vincent, the owner of Vincent’s Country Store, a midsized grocery store, said no store in Westminster has ever been cited for selling tobacco to kids, and banning it would have cost more than just tobacco sales.
The board of health’s justification to pursue a ban on the sale of all tobacco products was to have a “more even playing field if they banned all sales of tobacco products and nicotine delivery products in town,” said Briant.
“A complete ban on the issuance of retail tobacco permits to Westminster retailers does not create a level playing field, but eliminates the playing field in its entirety. To claim that taking away a retailer’s right to sell a legal product is somehow ‘fairer’ defies logic when doing so makes Westminster an island of prohibition and forces residents to travel a short distance to a nearby town to buy tobacco products,” he said, an argument echoed by local retailers.
“Most people that buy tobacco will grab a cold drink for the road, maybe scratch tickets, a bag of chips. So it’s not just an $8 sale—it’s a $20 to $30 sale,” he told PBS. “We’re just going to be sending all these sales 5 minutes down the road to another town where these customers will spend money on gas out of town, food out of town; and, before you know it, the gas stations are going under in Westminster, and other businesses.”
Vincent said he sells $100,000 worth of tobacco products a year, according to the Associated Press. “If this passes, what could be next? Sugar? Bacon?” he said.
Chris Bjurling, owner of the Depot General Store, said losing the tobacco and related retail sales would cost him about two-thirds of the money he uses to pay his employees. And for some of them, these are crucial jobs.
“Lisa has been with me for 18 years,” he told the news outlet. “I am her entire income. She in fact will lose her house if ” this job doesn’t exist.
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