Are smokers a dying breed?

(From Off Licence News)

It's been a tough year for smokers, and for the tobacco retailers that serve them.

Smoking was banned in enclosed public places across the UK from last July, and the weather hardly encouraged smokers to take to the fresh air. Then this month, EU legislation on child-proof lighters came into force just before Chancellor Alistair Darling slapped an 11p duty hike on cigarettes and rolling tobacco. And in the autumn we can look forward to the introduction of picture health warnings.

It's no wonder tobacco sales are floundering. In the six months to December 2007, cigarette sales dropped 5.4%, cigars 9.3% and pipe tobacco 10.6% by volume, according to Nielsen. Only rolling tobacco managed to grow sales, by 5.2%.

Nielsen says the cigarette market was worth AGBP9.7 billion in January 2008, and according to leading manufacturers the overall UK tobacco market is worth AGBP13 billion - of which some 80% goes straight into the Treasury's pockets.

The industry expects sales to decline by 3-4% a year in the wake of the ban.

The smoking ban Retailers OLN contacted are not complaining of severe sales losses since the smoking ban - in fact, many have seen it as an opportunity not just to steal a march on pub vending machines, but to sell other products to smokers who prefer drinking at home to smoking outside pubs.