IL Convenience Stores: Don't Ban Flavored Tobacco in Chicago

CHICAGO -- Starting next week, Chicago aldermen will debate the future of flavored tobacco products in the city. One organization says there's a lot at stake.

The Illinois Petroleum Marketers Association-Illinois Association of Convenience Stores successfully fought off a proposed ban on vapes, snuf and menthol last fall at the Illinois Statehouse. Now that the idea has reached City Council, the group is preparing to fight back.

Ahead of a planned initial hearing on the issue Monday, the IPMA-IACS is outlining its concerns in this statement from Josh Sharp, CEO:

“The IPMA/IACS is firmly against any further efforts by the City of Chicago to limit the legal product choices of consenting adults. This ordinance proposed by Alderman O’Shea willingly sends legal consumers to the suburbs and Indiana in order to purchase tobacco. The ordinance does not prohibit teens from purchasing flavored tobacco products. That has already been the law since 2016. Furthermore, Chicago currently prohibits flavored tobacco products from being sold within 500 feet of a high school. If the law is changed to now prohibit adults from buying the product, adults will just purchase the product in the nearest suburb, or they will buy in bulk in Indiana where the cost of the products is significantly less.

When adults stop at a gas station or local convenience store for cigarettes, they often purchase ancillary products such as food or gas. The city not only collects tobacco taxes, but sales taxes on the tobacco products and ancillary purchases as well. In 2019, the revenue from the tobacco tax and the sales tax on tobacco was over $21 million. That doesn’t include the sales tax from ancillary sales related to the purchase of tobacco. Mayor Lightfoot recently announced that the city is facing a $700 million budget shortfall. In response, we now get a proposal that shifts even more tax revenue to the suburbs.

Chicago should remain focused on what works. More targeted enforcement, along with stiffer penalties, will produce more effective results. Elected officials should look to strengthening enforcement where it is needed both online and in-store as well as engaging in educational campaigns against youth vaping and use of tobacco products. Illinois retailers and adult tobacco users are not the problem.”

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