From: Duluth News Tribune
Statewide View: Proposal would devastate convenience stores, city’s bottom line
The ban wouldn’t even succeed in getting flavored cigarettes out of the hands of smokers, who could simply drive to tobacco shops or outside city limits to purchase their preferred flavor of tobacco. These products will continue to be widely available (and cheaper) in stores right across the border, creating new opportunities for cigarette smugglers. Because of our exorbitant taxes, Minnesota already ranks fifth in the nation for cigarette smuggling, with more than 35 percent of cigarettes consumed being smuggled from out of state. The ban would only encourage more of this illegal activity on the streets of Duluth.
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All this debate might be moot if the proposed flavor ban concerned only a tiny proportion of tobacco products and the stores that sold them. But flavored cigarettes make up a major slice of the market — particularly menthol cigarettes, which account for 26 percent of all cigarettes sold. Banning such a popular product would devastate Duluth convenience stores, which would lose out not only on tobacco sales but on the sales of gas, food, snacks, and other items commonly purchased at the same time.
