Dairies stop selling ciggies

TO STOCK OR NOT: Some dairies have decided to stop stocking cigarettes but most say they bring customers into the shop.

A small number of dairies around the country have decided to take cigarettes off their shelves.

A New Zealand Herald article described how an Auckland dairy had made the move recently. Owner Tam Macken and her husband said they had never intended to sell cigarettes at the Devonport store after buying it last year, rebranding it as a retro milk bar.

Wairarapa DHB smokefree co-ordinator Linda Spence said all dairies in Wairarapa stocked cigarettes but she encouraged them to consider taking the product off their shelves.

"It's the best thing to do for their business," she said.

"They just have them [cigarettes] for foot traffic, there's not a lot of profit in them."

Ms Spence said a benefit of not stocking cigarettes might be a decrease in dairy burglaries.

She promised the Wairarapa smokefree network would back dairies if they decided not to stock cigarettes.

"We will be full of praise."

Smokefree Coalition executive director Prudence Stone said it was a challenge for retailers to remove tobacco products from stock, so when they did it was "fantastic".

She said there was a growing number of retailers around the country who refused to stock tobacco, because they did not want to compete with New Zealand's goal of being smokefree by 2025 and they were not making much money from the product.

The Times-Age visited dairies in Masterton and asked if they had considered taking cigarettes off their shelves.

Most dairy owners said they stocked cigarettes because when people came in to buy them they bought other products at the same time.