Convenience-store owners in Massachusetts are calling on members of the town of Concord’s board of health to reconsider advancing a proposed ordinance that would ban the sale of nicotine products to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2004.
According to a public notice, the Concord Board of Health will host a public in person and virtual hearing on Oct. 15, at 7:00 p.m. about a proposed bylaw modeled after the Boston suburb of Brookline.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in March upheld a law in Brookline that bans the sale of tobacco products to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2000. Brookline retailers sued to overturn the ban, but following years of legal proceedings, the state’s supreme judicial court upheld the bylaw.
The nicotine-free generation proposal would prohibit the sale of all tobacco and nicotine products including cigarettes, e-cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco to anyone born after a certain date.
The New England Convenience Store and Energy Marketers Association Inc. (NECSEMA) said the court’s ruling on Brookline sets in motion a “domino effect whereby communities across Massachusetts like Concord can adopt generational bans on nicotine products within their city limits.”
The retail community and NECSEMA, which represents thousands of convenience stores across New England, opposes the measure for several reasons, including:
- It haphazardly applies a discriminatory ban against the purchase of legal products by 21-plus adults, treating them differently from those born before them.
- Restricting the free choices of legal products to adults is fundamentally wrong.
- It creates and supports a dangerous illicit market.
- It does nothing to address under-age youth use of nicotine and tobacco products.
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