Stricter rules for tobacco companies have resulted in jazz festivals, fireworks displays, fashion shows, car races and award-winning journalism being deprived of essential support funds, which flamed out entirely after every effort to find loopholes in the legislation. But the backhanded efforts to pitch cigarettes to young people – from the acid-washed Tempo brand of the mid-’80s to Benson and Hedges furnishing indie rock combos with fancy tour buses a in exchange for hoisting a banner on stage – represent some of the most bizarre marketing artifacts of the past couple decades, making the legendary spectacle of The Flintstones cast savouring a pack of Winstons seem much less sinister in retrospect. The emotional protest at Queen’s Park by representatives of perhaps half of all Korean convenience store proprietors in the province, urging Dalton McGuinty to refrain from putting those last nails in the coffin of coffin nails, just gave the premier a platform to defend the decision to raise tobacco taxes and force stores to conceal cigarette displays behind a curtain, cutting off their income from manufacturers who’d pay to have their colours flown. The pinch is already being felt from a rash of robberies and escalating insurance costs, as the Ontario Korean Businessmen’s Association suggests that one-third of these stores will be forced to close soon – even sooner if there’s no effort made by the province to increase the retail cut of lottery tickets, let alone permit the sale of beer and wine. Regulation of cigarette sales has been the main agenda of the Ontario Convenience Stores Association for a while – conferences to chew over trends in beef jerky and energy drinks are overshadowed by impending doom that finds monolithic Mac’s proclaiming solidarity with the struggle of their independent counterparts. The despair should inspire wistful feelings amongst any kid who remembers the corner store as a friendly neighbourhood den of iniquity – or were hockey cards, junk food and adult magazines really just a gateway to a lifelong bad habit? (Your homages to unheralded GTA convenience stores are welcome via comments.)
Corner store owners thank you for smoking
April 20, 2006 · 6 Comments
Categories: fouronesix
6 responses so far ↓
dave // April 19, 2006 at 6:13 pm
I just despise Dilbert’s sanctimonious hypocrisy on topics like this. The product is legal, a third of adult Ontarians partake of it according government figures and yet smokers are treated more shabbily than the skankiest, drug-addled, HIV-spreading prostitute. On top of that they pay a hefty chunk of tax just to be figuratively spat on.
I also distrust the medical establishment agenda of saying how many deaths are “caused” by smoking or second-hand smoke.
I would be interested in seeing the tradeoff of tax dollars raised through the sales of cigarettes vs the bruited “cost of cancer” in the medical system (more suspect figures, I expect). Probably much like gasoline taxes which raise billions that are diverted to anything but road maintenance.
Yes I’m a smoker but I was off them for 7 years and still had the same cranky opinions about the Garfield Mahoods of the world. And my grandfather died of heart disease - at age 88 and having smoked for about 75 years. Maybe he would have reached 90 if he never smoked, but then again maybe he would have been hit by a bus one day when he didn’t stop to light one up.
Not Dave // April 20, 2006 at 3:23 pm
Dave, you are an ignorant smoker, that is obvious from your comments. If you were to compare the $ amount spent on health care issues on smokers vs. the tax $ collected on the sale of cigarette, it would not even compare. Nevermind the fect that for the last 80 years or so the population has smoke when there was very little tax on tobacco products.
As far as i’m concerned, and I have family members who smoke, we should do as much as possible to make these people uncomfortable - smoke outside in the cold, no smoking in puiblic spaces, raise taxes even more on tobacco, etc… this might have more and more people quit!
dennis chow // April 20, 2006 at 6:01 pm
I think smoking tobacco is nothing wrong. They should not raise the taxes on tobacco. Its not that harmful and like the first person said if his grandfather didnt stop to light a cigarette he might have gotten hit by the bus. Smoking is maybe harmful but its our life so stay out of it dave.
Jonathan // April 23, 2006 at 12:34 pm
Ultimately, the issue has nothing to do with whether or not smoking is harmful. It is harmful, to the smoker and anyone within the immediate vicinity of said smoke. Full stop, no debate.
The issue is that smoking has been put in the public consciousness as the root of all evil these days, and its proponets nothing more than twisted social pariahs…second-class citizens. This carries two consequences:
1. although not to be ignored, the debate of smoking (in public…anywhere really) conveniently deflects other public health issues including the kinds of garbage foods we allow ourselves to eat (like smoking, a choice, even though we know that a less than decent diet will put us in all kinds of trouble in later years) and vehicle exhaust (go on, just try to tell me that’s not toxic and cancer causing). Smoker are easy targets, and if you ask the average non-smoker, they’re the only targets in the public sphere that are doing the populace at large any harm. The crusade for uber-health is primarily driven by health itself, but it also carries with it something more personal and sinister: it’s a great way to feel superior to certain people around you. After all, self-edification is much easier when you have an obvious street-level target to look down on.
2. Arbitrariness and witch-hunting, rather than logic and reason, have become an accepted de facto mindset for dealing with all things that threaten our health. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to get smoking out of bars, restaurants etc etc., but if it is so bad, finish the job and make cigarettes illegal altogether. That won’t happen though, and not due to a big, evil tobacco lobby. The very governments that want smoking out of our public spaces will never close that purse of tax revenue. Nothing short of mean, greedy and hypocritical.
Furthermore, as it has already been pointed out, if I’m a junkie or a crack head, all I need do is stumble to the nearest state-sponsored fix clinic and shoot/smoke up. Does this not do harm to society at large? If I’m idling my vehicle ad infinitum during a hot summer day (or anytime), odds are I won’t be punished even though it is, sometimes, sort of illegal. Again, does this not harm the people who pass by?
Each side will, and has, accused each other of being bullies, selfish blah blah blah. Comments like ‘ignorant smoker’ and ‘these people’ (the latter especially sinister) are symptomatic of how both sides of the debate have lost sight (if it was ever there) of reaching a real and workable solution that betters us as a whole. Instead, both sides have devolved into ill-thought, knee-jerk petulance.
I would sincerely hope that we take the bold step of making cigarettes illegal altogether. That is the only way to rid our public spaces of it, as well as arm those who really want to quit with the ultimate aid: no temptation.
Once accomplished, then it’s time to move on to drivers, drinkers, and junk food eaters. Exclude ‘these people’ from society, make them feel as uncomfortable as possible, bully them…run them out of town. After that, let’s go after cell phone users (brain cancer), people who talk and joke in public (noise pollution)…
The treatment of smokers has already set the precedent. It is now acceptable to go after any group of people in society accordingly. Let the witch hunts begin!
Congratulations to all for creating this culture of intolerance.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m stepping outside for a cigarette.
dave // April 24, 2006 at 8:48 pm
Not Dave wrote:
“If you were to compare the $ amount spent on health care issues on smokers vs. the tax $ collected on the sale of cigarette, it would not even compare. Nevermind the fect that for the last 80 years or so the population has smoke when there was very little tax on tobacco products.”
A few months back I read an article in the Star quoting the Ontario health minister stating that the health cost “due to smoking” was a specific amount per year. The story also quoted the percentage of Ontario smokers and the average number of cigarettes smoked per year. Doing a little research I looked up the current tax per cigarette (Ontario only, not federal), multiplied by the approximate number of Ontario smokers and number of cigarettes and ended up with a figure several hundred million dollars more than the “cost”. Sorry I can’t find the article now.
Also please remember that universal health care did not exist 80 years ago. Back then if you fell ill you either paid or died.
By the way Not Dave, what is your weight like? Do you have more than 2 cups of coffee a day? If you’re a fat coffee swiller you are as likely to have an expensive hospital stay as a smoker.
Chew on that.
alanTdot // April 27, 2006 at 6:01 pm
Such Venom from the ashy mouths of this tormented cabal!
How do you control your BS reflex when you write such passionate rebuttals? (Rebuttals which could be cut and pasted from the closing remarks of ANY of the Big Tobacco lawsuits from the past 30 years.)
Okay here we go FOR THE LAST TIME
- There is no safe level of smoking it is more addictive than Heroin - and Heroin doesn’t get the same ‘cool’ factor repeated over and over through the media.
- Tobacco Companies have lied to their consumers for years!
- You are challenging the governments right to put a tax on the act of burning 2000 carcinogens and inhaling it.
- I am bored of this. Everyone has heard the same facts time and time again…..
I know quitting smoking is terribly difficult, but that doesn’t mean that it is an act that deserves such vigorous defense.
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