Laserfiche WebLink
Association for Nonsmokers-MN <br />www.ansrmn.org <br />Reducing the Number of Tobacco Licenses <br />in Your Community <br />The “How” and “Why” of reducing the number of stores selling tobacco products in your <br />community. <br />When more tobacco and e-cigarette retailers are located in a given area, residents’ health suffers. <br />Youth are more likely to start using tobacco. People who smoke consume more cigarettes per day and <br />have a harder time quitting. Further, <br />tobacco and e-cigarette retailers cluster in <br />neighborhoods with a high percentage of <br />low-income residents and Black and Latino <br />residents. These communities are targeted <br />by tobacco companies, and they <br />disproportionately suffer the health harms <br />caused by tobacco use. <br />To decrease the overall presence and impact of commercial tobacco, communities can use their <br />tobacco licensing ordinance to restrict the total number of tobacco licenses that they issue. <br />There are varied approaches to restricting the number of tobacco licenses, including: <br />●Setting a cap of zero licenses.When a license is not renewed (for example, if a retailer closes <br />or chooses to stop selling tobacco products), it is permanently retired, effectively reducing the <br />overall number of licenses over time. <br />●Setting a cap of one or more on the total number of licenses and requiring any prospective <br />tobacco or e-cigarette retailer in excess of the cap to join a waiting list until an existing license <br />becomes available. <br />●Setting a cap at a specific number of licenses based on population (for example, allowing one <br />tobacco license per 2,000 residents). As with capping a total number of licenses at zero, when <br />a license is not renewed, it is permanently retired until the desired total number of licenses is <br />reached.