Image: New tobacconist in Dulwich Hill, 'Tobacco Candy Mart'. Facebook
A Sydney council has voted to reduce the number of shops selling smoking products amidst concerns of proliferating tobacco and vape shops across New South Wales.
Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne wants the council to have more power in preventing tobacco and vape shops opening in the area, especially near schools.
“The enormous number of tobacconist and vape stores opening near primary and high schools poses a real threat to the health of children and must be curtailed,” he said.
He highlighted Dulwich Hill’s ‘Tobacco Candy Mart’ as the “latest obscene example of how these stores are targeting our kids”.
“It’s time to take a stand,” he said.
In the council’s first meeting on Tuesday, the mayor’s minute on new regulatory powers was unanimously passed.
The motion called for new regulations requiring that tobacco and vape shops seek approval through a development application, capping and reducing the number of these stores, and limitations on their ability to open near schools.
Parents in a local community Facebook group have expressed their concern with tobacconists advertising candy, such as ‘Leichhardt Smokes’, which also advertises itself as an ‘American, British & Irish Candy Store’.
The push to stop the proliferation of tobacconists and vape shops in the Inner West comes during a national crackdown on illegal vapes, which saw more than 60 raids conducted on retailers across Sydney earlier this month.
Mayor Byrne said, “At a time when the federal government is looking to ban vapes, thousands of new tobacconist shops are opening each year with no restrictions at all.”
“Decades after tobacco advertising was banned, it’s nonsensical that we are allowing these shops to proliferate throughout every suburb and town in NSW. It’s time to act.”
