WINNIPEG – Smokers will soon have far fewer options when it comes to buying cigarettes in Manitoba.
Stores with pharmacies will not be allowed to sell tobacco after the end of the month.
“It’s been kind of a contradiction to have pharmacies in the same setting as where tobacco products are sold,” said Tracy Fehr, with the Lung Association of Manitoba.
Provincial legislation was passed last year but is only now coming into effect.
Safeway officials told Global News tobacco isn’t a big money-maker since the products couldn’t be advertised.
“For us, this isn’t a big change,” said John Graham, with Canada Safeway.
Safeway will still sell cigarettes in four of its locations that do not have pharmacies and its gas bars.
Shoppers Drug Mart has been phasing out cigarettes for years. Only 17 of the chain’s 41 stores stock tobacco.
“Accessibility means that there are more sales, so by constraining the amount of places people can get tobacco products, people will decrease the amount of smoking that occurs,” said Jim Rondeau, Manitoba’s healthy living minister.
Sobeys officials said they are in the process of building cigarette kiosks in all of the store’s 16 Manitoba locations with pharmacies. They will have a separate entrance for customers and comply with the new legislation.
The law will affect 106 pharmacies in Manitoba.
After May 31, only British Columbia will allow the store to sell cigarettes.
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