Member News
By Lesley Foottit - 8th October 2009
Pub landlords would rather remove their cigarette vending machines than enforce tough laws on preventing child access to them, according to new research.
The proposed new law would require bar staff to identity check every young person wanting to access the machine.
Landlords believe the proposal is impossible to implement during busy hours, according to a survey of licensees in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The study was carried out by the British Heart Foundation NI and comes a week before Westminster debate on the issues in the Health Bill.
The BHF want Stormont health minister Michael McGimpsey to go a step further and ban the machines.
The proposed legislation would make landlords responsible for any underage buyers.
A majority of 75 per cent said they would rather have the machines removed than risk prosecution.
The charity's survey shows that 82 per cent of landlords would not be affected by the revenue lost from vending cigarettes, describing the small profit as "unimportant".
BHF NI's Jayne Murray said: "The UK government's proposals outlined in the Bill are unworkable and unrealistic.
"The message from the pub industry is loud and clear, they can't make these proposals work and the loose change they make from these machines isn't worth the hassle of keeping them.
"The only people with a real interest in vending machines are the tobacco industry. Every year young people start a lifetime's addiction to cigarettes by buying them from a vending machine.
"Both the UK government and the Northern Ireland Assembly needs to be braver and put the interests of children ahead of a commercial lobby."
The BHF estimates that around 850 regular smokers aged between 11 and 15 get their cigarettes from vending machines in Northern Ireland.
Murray added: "We don't allow other age-restricted products like alcohol, fireworks or knives to be sold from vending machines. These are only sold where there is a face-to-face transaction over the counter.
"Smoking is one of the biggest avoidable causes of death and disease in the country. Yet we continue to allow vending machines which undermine the restrictions already in place, and allow children to pick up an addiction they take into adulthood."
The BHF interviewed 300 pub landlords in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Scottish Government published a bill in February which included a full ban on cigarette vending machines.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd
Gerald Phillips
8th Oct 2009 at 5:59 pm