Auckland among regions with the fewest tobacco retailers under new proposal

New maps show the potential distribution of New Zealand tobacco stores. Photo / 123rf

The Auckland region will have among the fewest number of tobacco retailers in the country under a new Ministry of Health proposal.

The ministry last month released a proposal for public consultation on how it plans to reduce tobacco retailers from 6000 to 600 by July next year and has released maps indicating how many retailers should be operating in different regions across the country.

The proposal relates to the world-first reform to the sale of tobacco in New Zealand introduced by now Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall, which included the significant reduction of retailers and the inability for anyone born on or after January 1, 2009, to buy smoked tobacco products.

Despite having roughly a third of the national population, the Auckland region would have only 33 tobacco retailers - the fourth-lowest out of the 12 regions identified.

Waikato would have the most tobacco retailers with 90, followed by Otago/Southland (87), Canterbury/Chatham Islands (77) and Bay of Plenty (59).

The proposal’s authors explained it was likely there would be more premises per person who smoked in rural areas compared with urban areas because they intended to avoid clusterings of retailers in poorer areas but also ensure reasonable access for those who lived rurally.

However, representatives of retailers continue to criticise the reform, saying the proposed spread wasn’t logical and needed to be reworked.

“It really doesn’t make sense,” Retail NZ chief executive Greg Harford said.

“I believe that it should be a little bit more thought over,” Dairy and Business Owners Group spokesman Sandeep Aggarwal said.

Verrall wasn’t available to be interviewed but a statement provided to the Herald from the ministry’s public health policy and regulation group manager Jane Chambers said the 2018 Census data was used to develop the example locations.

“For urban areas, a base calculation was used to translate population and smoker numbers to potential numbers for urban retail premises,” she said.

“Estimated drive times between urban areas and along state highways were used as the basis for potential retail premise numbers in rural areas.

“The allocation scenarios and the locations in the consultation document have been provided only as examples.

“This is not what the final distribution will look like. Local adjustments can and will need to be made.”

Retail New Zealand chief executive Greg Harford. Photo / Supplied

The proposal outlined the authors’ view retailer distribution shouldn’t be solely determined by how many smokers lived in a region, saying it would cause most retailers to exist in Auckland while other smaller urban areas would “end up with no stores at all”.

Alongside store allocation, the document listed the potential criteria that could be used to determine what retailers would be able to sell tobacco products.

The proposed criteria included having sufficient security - secure product storage, a working fog cannon, an alarm system and security cameras.

Employees would also need to be educated on their responsibilities under the law, sales must be recorded and delivery processes would need to be secure.

In the instance two applicants had equally satisfied the criteria, choosing between them could come down to whether they were close to schools or sports grounds, their compliance record or the nature of their business - retailers who exclusively sold smoked tobacco products would be preferred over those that sold other items.

Aggarwal said he believed many retailers wouldn’t bother attempting to comply with the criteria and would instead try to adapt their business, threatening their survival.

Harford, who confirmed Retail NZ’s support for the reduction of smoking, echoed Aggarwal’s concern.

“The problem you’ve got is for many of these businesses, particularly serving little communities, they’re customer driven so you can diversify all you like but if your customers don’t want to buy Ponsonby-style lattes then they won’t.”

The ministry proposal acknowledged the significant loss of revenue retailers could endure if they were unable to sell smoked tobacco products and said “other support” could be offered, but that it would not extend to “direct compensation”.

Chambers said no decisions had been made on what was meant by “other support” and she was hopeful submitters could provide suggestions.

Submissions on the proposal close on March 15.