KEY POINTS:
A legal loophole is enabling some shops selling cigarettes to flout the spirit of the Smokefree Environments Act, says the Smoke Free Coalition.
One such shop is San's Cigarettes For Less in Wellington's Manners St. It can advertise cigarettes on signs outside the shop because it is registered as a company under that name.
Smokefree Coalition director Mark Peck said he had complained about the name of the shop to the Health Ministry, which was investigating.
The Smokefree Environments Act 1990 prohibits retail advertising of tobacco products except inside a shop. But a retailer's name or trade name can be displayed outside, even when it acts as an advertisement for tobacco, so long as it does not name any brands.
"They may not be breaking the law but they are breaching the spirit of it," Mr Peck said
The owner of San's Cigarettes For Less, San Panchal, said the name was meant to distinguish it from his other shop, San's Jewellers.
Wellington Regional Public Health smokefree officer Pam Smith agreed the loophole needed to be addressed.
The public health unit had received complaints about other similar advertising, but not about San's.
She believed such shop names did breach the spirit of the Act. The Ministry of Health's chief adviser of population health, Ashley Bloomfield, said the issue would be looked at before the legislation was next reviewed. There was no firm date for that review.
- NZPA
