Category Management | Cigars
Cigar Category Braces Against Proposed Flavor Bans As c-stores await news on FDA’s proposed flavor ban in cigars, more local and state proposals prohibiting flavored tobacco are appearing. Howard Riell • Contributing Editor
When it comes to the cigar category, c-store retailers are watching regulatory headwinds at the local, state and federal levels as legislatures increasingly target flavored tobacco. A ban on flavored cigars would clearly change the dynamic of the tobacco category at convenience stores. The good news is, despite the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) releasing proposed product standards to ban characterizing flavors in cigars earlier this year, it will likely be several years before any such ban would go into effect. The 86
CSTORE DECISIONS •
November 2022
bad news is some states and local municipalities are moving forward with bans of their own. 2022 has seen proposed bans pop up across all 50 states, according to Thomas Briant, executive director of the National Association of Tobacco Outlets (NATO). They included outlawing everything from flavored cigars to menthol cigarettes, flavored smokeless tobacco, flavored electronic cigarettes, flavored hookah tobacco and/or electronic cigarette/vapor flavors. Eleven states — Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington — introduced bills to ban all flavored tobacco products, according to Briant.
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