BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn.—These days, where there’s smoke—or smokes—there’s fire.
This time the conflagration started when local governments began raising prices on small stogies and cigarillos sold in Twin Cities convenience stores.
Brooklyn Center this summer implemented Minnesota’s first ordinance aimed at reducing the affordability of flavored mini-cigars.
“We know these products are targeted at young people and popular among young people,” said Emily Anderson of the Association of Nonsmokers-Minnesota. “The goal is to make those products a bit less successful by getting the price up, so that they are less appealing to young people.”
St. Paul began enforcing a similar ordinance this month, and Bloomington, Minneapolis and Northfield are considering following suit.
Yet small business owners maintain the latest anti-tobacco fad simply sends customers to the next city over for a legal product that makes a big difference in their respective bottom lines.
“In effect, the ordinances are ushering in a new era of prohibition; that’s basically what it’s doing,” said Tom Briant, executive director of the Twin Cities-based National Association of Tobacco Outlets. “This is very detrimental and damaging to retailers, because your average convenience store relies on tobacco sales inside their stores for 40 percent of their in-store sales.”
The Twin Cities suburb acted after a survey of local high school students found the number of men trying small cigars on the upswing, even as cigarette usage declined. The City Council voted to set a minimum price of $2.10 per cigarillo, even in packs containing as many as four cigars, now sold for at least $8.40.
“We know that young people are particularly price sensitive and that they’re looking for cheap tobacco products, versus a pack of cigarettes, which now days cost seven or eight dollars,” said Anderson.
