Retailers Reject Smokefree Coalition Claims
PRESS RELEASE – 30 March 2008
Stay Displays, its more than 200 active retailers and thousands of individual voters around New Zealand reject claims by
the Smokefree Coalition’s director Mark Peck.
Stay Displays has legitimate and justifiable concerns over the controversial Government proposals to ban displays of
tobacco from retail outlets. Stay Displays has made its voice public through the use of a website, the general news
media and the unpaid, voluntary work of our spokespeople.
Stay Displays spokesperson Richard Green, from Palmerston North, says: “The fact that Mark Peck is attacking our group
and ignoring our message shows he doesn’t want true debate and doesn’t like retailers voicing their concerns. This shows
how duplicitous and hypocritical these groups are when they receive hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to
undermine local dairies and convenience stores, and yet they make demands on Stay Displays.”
“Their claims that having tobacco products on display actually make people smoke is absurd. Wine displays in
supermarkets don’t turn people into alcoholics; chocolate displays don’t make people fat, and tobacco displays don’t
make people smoke.
“Groups like Smokefree Coalition don't represent the public; they are creatures of the Ministry of Heath, funded by the
Ministry of Health doing the Ministry’s bidding. They don’t contribute to local communities or to this country’s
economy, like retailers,” Mr Green said.
“The Smokefree Coalition should be embarrassed using its hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars to fight against
family-owned businesses. If the law on displays changes, we may see local dairies go to the wall because of the work of
these lobby groups to undermine them.
“Stay Displays continues because retailers around New Zealand are downloading our petition from our website
www.staydisplays.co.nz, thousands of ordinary members of the public are signing the petition, retailers are making
comments to local media – and all this makes the anti-tobacco groups angry.
“There are journalists in this country who don't swallow the rubbish delivered by these lobby groups and are prepared to
report the concerns of small businesses and the family-owned retailer,” Mr Green said. “The New Zealand public has a
right to the truth about how the government's proposals to ban tobacco displays will affect their local communities.
Many small businesses could go to the wall, and that's something everyone needs to know.”
ends