Author: Staff Writer

Representatives ofBulgaria’s restaurant and hotel sector have written an open letter to Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, asking for an easing of the country’s indoor public-places tobacco smoking ban, according to a Novinite story.

The sector estimates that turnover has slumped by 20-40 per cent since the ban was introduced on June 1 and is alarmed about a possible mass exodus of customers and, therefore, business bankruptcies, during the winter season.

The letter was signed by business owners from 26 cities, by the Bulgarian Hotel and Restaurant Association, the informal association, Free Choice, and the Facebook group, ‘Association of Locales inBulgaria’.

According to a story in the Trud (Labor) daily, the associations seem to be making suggestions similar to those tabled in parliament on September 28 as proposed amendments to the Health Act.

The bill’s authors, Kiril Goumnerov and Stoyan Ivanov, who are not affiliated to any parliamentary group, said they wanted a return to the regulatory position that existed before the introduction of the ban whereby all establishments bigger than 70 square meters had to have separate smoking and non-smoking areas, while smaller establishments had the choice of being either fully-smoking or non-smoking.

Under the bill, night clubs would be smoking establishments, regardless of their size, but they would not be allowed to give entry to underage customers.

But this plan did not go down well with Bulgaria’s ruling party and senior government figures and, on October 5, Health Minister, Desislava Atanasova, said there would be no backtracking on the law against smoking in public places. Bulgaria had one of the worst rates of heart disease, a fact directly linked to the high rate of smoking among Bulgarians, she said.

KT&G has said it is due to launch a 1 mg version of its coffee-scented Raison Cafe cigarette on October 10, according to a story in The Korea Herald.

The brand was launched in 6 mg format in July.

A KT&G spokesman said Raison Cafe delivered a rich scent of ‘hazelnut coffee’ through the addition of ground coffee beans to the filter.

“We spent four years of research and development coming up with a technology that can directly insert ground coffee beans into the filter,” he said.

The Raison Cafe brand is expected to gain popularity among younger smokers in the wake of the general shift away from menthol.

As part of its efforts to comply with Zimbabwe’s indigenization policy, BAT Zimbabweis planning to sell a 21 per cent stake in the company, according to a Business Day (South Africa) story relayed by the TMA.

The policy compels foreign-owned companies to empower the country’s citizens by transferring majority shareholdings to locals.

BATZimbabwesaid it was planning to sell a 21 per cent stake by creating an employee share ownership trust (ESOT) that would hold 10 per cent and a corporate social investment trust that would hold 11 per cent.

A circular signed by company secretary, Shungu Chirinda, said the move was expected to make the company compliant with the indigenization policy.

Full compliance is expected to be finalized over the next three years, the circular said.

Volunteers from Imperial Tobacco’s Radom factory in Polandrecently gave up some of their spare time to help plant 50 trees in a public park in the city.

A group of 25 employees and their families took part in the tree planting day inRadom’s Osiedle Południe park with saplings donated by Imperial.

The tree planting was the latest in a number of Imperial-employee conservation initiatives, which have included the feeding of forest animals near Radom last winter.

“The aim as with other projects was to act out of concern for the natural environment and for the good of the local community,” said factory manager, Katarzyna Wolińska.

“Our factory in Radom is one of the largest employers in the region and our employees are more than happy to give something back.

“I’m delighted that we carried out another project initiated by our employees. This is proof of the commitment of our people.”

To mark the event a commemorative plaque was placed among the trees.

Australia’s law requiring that tobacco be sold in ‘plain packaging’ is constitutionally valid because it does not acquire property, the High Court has explained.

According to an Australian Associated Press story, the court on Friday published its reasons for ruling in mid-August that plain packaging was constitutionally valid. ‘Although the (Tobacco Plain Packaging) act regulated the plaintiffs’ intellectual property rights and imposed controls on the packaging and presentation of tobacco products it did not confer a proprietary benefit or interest on the commonwealth,’ said a summary of the judgment released by the court.

“The act was valid as it did not acquire property.’

Dyson Heydon, the sole dissenting judge in what was a 6 to 1 ruling, criticized the government’s ‘hatred’ of Section 51 (xxxi) of the constitution, which requires it to pay for property it acquires.

British American Tobacco Australia (BATA), Japan Tobacco International, Philip Morris and Imperial Tobacco Australia will have to pay the commonwealth’s legal costs, which Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, said ran into millions of dollars.

The legislation means all tobacco products will, from December 1, have to be sold in olive-colored packs designed on behalf of the government to look as unattractive as is possible.

BATA on Friday maintained the government’s policy was flawed. Spokesman, Scott McIntyre, said in a statement that regardless of the reasons for the High Court’s decision, the plain packaging requirement was a bad piece of law that would have serious unintended consequences.

Meanwhile, The World Trade Organization’s Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) has agreed to establish a panel to examineAustralia’s plain packaging requirements.

In its request for the establishment of a panel,Ukrainesaid thatAustralia’s measures ‘erode the protection of intellectual property rights’ and ‘impose severe restrictions on the use of validly registered trademarks’.

Ukraine’s statement said also that ‘Ukraineconsiders that governments should pursue legitimate health policies through effective measures without unnecessarily restricting international trade and without nullifying intellectual property rights as guaranteed by international trade and investment rules’.

Ukraine considers that the measures ‘are clearly more restrictive than necessary to achieve the stated health objectives’ and thus violate the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade as an ‘unnecessary obstacle to trade’.

About 1,000 workers said to have been laid off by Philip Morris Pakistan are taking part in a demonstration outside the company’s warehouse at Ismaila, according to a report in The Nation and another in Right Vision News, which was relayed by the TMA.

The protestors are demanding reinstatement in light of the Peshawar High Court’s August 27 verdict in their favour.

The have vowed not to allow the re-opening of the warehouse until their demands are met.

PMP officials said that the demonstrators were not regular employees but were hired on a seasonal basis at its threshing unit.

The officials said the same policy of seasonal hiring had been used before PMP had acquired Lakson Tobacco Company.

After the acquisition, it said, the seasonal workers had formed the Muttahida Workers Union and demanded that the company regularize their jobs.

The workers said they went to resume their work after the High Court verdict, but that the company had refused to open its gate and called the police to prevent the workers from entering the building.

About 100 French tobacconists have blocked access to the border with Spainin the south-western frontier village of Perthusto protest against a recent price hike on cigarettes and other tobacco products, according to an Agence France Presse story relayed by Tobacco China Online.

The demonstrators set up barricades along a four-kilometer route to denounce a 6.5-10.0 per cent increase in prices introduced this month, saying they were being forced out of business.

One sign set up on the roadblock read: ‘A new network created by the state – tobacco mafia’; while another read: ‘Smuggling = 15,000 cartons per Sunday and destruction of the economy’.

Hordes of French people descend on the village every weekend to cross the border and snap up cheap tobacco and alcohol in Spain.

Gerard Vidal, the head of a local tobacconists’ body, said the difference in prices between those of Spain, where cigarettes sold for as little as €4.25 a pack, and those in France, where the lowest was €6.10, was “catastrophic.”

Access to information about the TFWA (Tax Free World Association) World Exhibition is being made available through an app.

The exhibition is due to be held inCanneson 21-26 October.

Organizers say that by downloading the app it is possible to view the agendas of the exhibition, conference and workshops, and the social program.

The app allows access to the exhibition floor plan, exhibitor lists and stand locations.

And it provides the index of on-site services and facilities.

The app may be downloaded at App Store, App World, or www.tfwa.com.

A new study shows that environmental vapor from electronic cigarettes poses little risk to non-vapers.

An indoor air quality study conducted by CHANGE LLC at the Center for Air Resources Engineering and Science atClarksonUniversityinPotsdam,New York, was published this month in the peer reviewed journal, Inhalation Toxicology.

The study, which was sponsored by the National Vapers’ Club (NVP), a consumer-based electronic cigarette organization, compared the levels of harmful by-products commonly found in cigarette smoke with those found in the vapour of several popular brands of electronic cigarettes.

Most of the harmful compounds found in smoke were not found in the electronic cigarette vapour, and those few compounds that were found were at such minuscule levels that toxicology analysis detected no risk (cancer or non-cancer risk) to public health, the NVP said in a press note issued through PRNewswire.

The note quoted Dr. Michael Siegel, of Boston University School of Public Health, as saying that the study demonstrated that the risks of second-hand vapor from electronic cigarette use were very small in comparison to those associated with second-hand tobacco smoke.

“While second-hand smoke must be eliminated in workplaces and public places, the current data provide no justification for eliminating electronic cigarette use in these places,” Siegel was quoted as saying.

Shock and fear tactics do not encourage young people to quit smoking, according to a B&T Weekly story quoting the results of a study by researchers at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.

And cigarette price increases and restrictions on smoking in public places decrease the desire and intention to quit, the study has found.

But positive campaign strategies, such as the use of opinion leaders, have the strongest impact on the intention to stop smoking, said Dr. Christopher White, of RMIT’sSchoolofEconomics, Finance and Marketing.

“Our analysis showed measures such as smoking restrictions in the workplace and in public places, and ongoing increases to the price of cigarettes, actually significantly weakened the desire to quit,” he said.

“It’s not clear why these measures have this effect, though perhaps they are seen as heavy-handed and are evoking resistance and defiance among young people.”

The RMIT study surveyed 126 smokers aged between 18 and 24 on the impact of a variety of government anti-smoking measures.