Mayor Nutter Wants Local Stores To Stop Selling Cigarettes
By Mike Dunn
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Mayor Nutter says there's no conflict between city schools getting millions from the new $2-a-pack tax on cigarettes, and the Health Department's effort to convince local stores to stop selling cigarettes.
Nutter this past week handed out awards to seven local stores, and to CVS, for agreeing to stop selling cigarettes:
"I certainly hope that other businesses will follow these examples and stop selling tobacco products," Nutter said. "More than 3,000 locations across the city sell tobacco products and 75-percent of retailers are located within two blocks of a school."
One of the retailers honored at the event was Jian Sheng Chen, who owns a dollar store at 10th and Snyder in South Philadelphia. He said he became convinced cigarette sales were simply not worth it:
"For long-term, customer lose their health, they get health problems, but we get money. That's not fair to customers. That's why we stopped selling to customers."
So the city Health Department is launching a campaign aimed at convincing other retailers to stop selling cigarettes, with information at smokefreephilly.org.
Earlier this year, the city imposed a $2-a-pack tax on cigarettes in order to bring millions of dollars in increased funding to the school district. Nutter does not see any conflict between the desire for school funding and the effort to get cigarettes out of local stores:
"I see no conflict whatsoever with these efforts. Having healthier people, kids not starting to smoke in the first place, is the number one goal. We're not trading the health of our citizens for continued or increased funding."
The Health Department says Philadelphia has nearly 50,000 fewer smokers today than in 2007.
