EDITORIAL – A call for change: Wegmans butts out of tobacco market

Wegmans Food Markets’ decision to stop selling tobacco products won’t change the world. But it… Wegmans Food Markets’ decision to stop selling tobacco products won’t change the world. But it could be indicative that the world we live in is changing.

The grocery chain, which is based out of New York but has stores in Erie, Harrisburg and Eastern Pennsylvania, announced Jan. 4 that it will go cigarette-free once its current supplies sell out, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Wegmans, which is family owned and has 71 stores spanning five states, said it came to the decision after weighing the health risks of smoking, according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

Wegmans isn’t the first retail chain to stop selling tobacco products – Target stores haven’t sold tobacco since 1996, and many organic and health food grocery stores have never sold tobacco – but it is the first grocery chain in New York state to remove tobacco products from its shelves.

The announcement has drawn sharp reactions from the chain’s customers, some of them angry over the loss of choice and others praiseworthy of the decision to promote healthy living.

Wegmans’ decision could influence other grocery chains into going the same route, but the chain isn’t expecting its customers to quit smoking en masse.

The decision, rather, was more of a symbolic statement: Smoking is bad for you, and we’ll help you quit.

While Wegmans officials admit that tobacco products are still very profitable for the grocery store chain, we doubt Wegmans would make the decision to cut its losses in pursuit of public health unless those losses would be marginal.

The chain has acknowledged that tobacco sales have declined in recent years – a trend not exclusive to the Wegmans chain and a sign that the American public is either kicking its smoking habit or shifting the locations where they purchase tobacco products.

If the answer is the former, Wegmans’ move could be the first of many.

But we don’t expect local chains to follow in its footsteps any time soon.

Wegmans, which is known for its organic and upscale offerings, draws customers looking for unique products who won’t mind having to purchase their cigarettes somewhere else.

Many competing grocery stores, which only offer everyday supermarket staples, don’t have enough of a unique draw to cut out their tobacco sales.

Without another incentive to shop in their stores, customers hoping to purchase tobacco might simply choose to go shopping somewhere else.

Which is part of the reason why we applaud Wegmans’ move.Large stores with enough of a draw to cut out tobacco sales need to set the example.

Sure, people probably aren’t going to quit smoking because they can’t buy their cigarettes and organic food at the same time, but changing the geography of where someone can purchase tobacco might, over time, prevent a new generation of smokers from picking up the habit.