The government’s proposed ban on the sale of single cigarettes and prohibition on tabletop displays of tobacco products will decimate small businesses, an informal traders association told parliament this week.
The proposals are contained in the draft Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill currently before parliament’s portfolio committee on health. MPs have completed public hearings in all nine provinces and are now taking oral submissions in parliament.
Clause 4(3)(c) of the bill bans the sale of individual cigarettes. Yet these products are informal traders’ “life blood”, as they attract customers who buy other goods, said Limpopo Small Medium Enterprises and Hawkers Association general secretary Mampapatla Madikoto.
“If we can’t sell single cigarettes, we are out of … business,” he said.
Most customers could not afford a full box of cigarettes or wanted to control their habit by just buying one or two cigarettes a day, he told MPs.
There are an estimated 2-million informal traders, hawkers and spaza shop owners in SA, the majority of whom are women, said the association.
The bill’s ban on the display, promotion and advertising of tobacco products, which includes displaying cigarettes on counter tops or tables, was impractical, as informal traders lacked the means to keep tobacco products out of sight, said Madikoto. The bill’s penalties for violating these rules, which include up to 10 years in prison, were extreme relative to the offence, he said.
“It will criminalise informal traders for selling a legal product,” he said.
The bill’s provisions holding traders liable if their customers smoked near their stalls in outdoor public places that were designated nonsmoking areas, were unreasonable, unenforceable and could lead to extortion by law enforcement authorities, he said. The penalty for a trader who did not stop someone smoking in a public place was five years imprisonment, said Madikoto
Current tobacco legislation prohibits smoking in indoor public places, except for designated smoking areas that can be up to 25% of the indoor area. The bill seeks to extend these measures, with clause 2(1) (a) of the bill proposing a complete ban on smoking in indoor public places, while section 2 (2) gives the health minister the power to publish regulations prohibiting smoking in specific outdoor public places. Clause 2 (4) says the owner or person in control of a workplace or public space designated as a nonsmoking area is responsible for ensuring no-one smokes in that place.
The Gauteng Liquor Traders Association opposed the bill’s restrictions on smoking in public places, saying it would be impossible for tavern owners in crowded neighbourhoods to enforce.
The bill’s ban on displaying tobacco products was unworkable and the restrictions on smoking in public places placed an unreasonable burden on tavern owners, said the association’s spokesperson Jongikhaya Kraai. “We’ll be forced to police our own customers,” he said.
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