The BBC reports the beginning of the vending machine in England today. This measure is designed to protect 'under-age children' from the temptations of tobacco, by preventing them from buying a product that contains fewer cigarettes and is more expensive than tobacco from any other source.
There is no need to destroy an industry on the pretext of preventing children from accessing tobacco. Vending machine companies have been developing solutions to age verification problems. If, Michael Matheson then MSP (now Minister for Public Health) claimed when the Bill was passed, there is no evidence proving that kids wouldn't find a way to use a radio-controlled machine activated upon age verification, there is likewise no guarantee that future generations of kids will even give vending machines a thought once they are no longer there. If they want to smoke, they will find a way.
2 comments:
Banning vending machines in pubs
clubs,discos etc ?
Who are the two big winners from
this bit of neo Marxist nonsense?
Asian shopkeepers and back street dealers of course
Losers
The Exchequer,400 businesses and 3000+ workers in
the trade sector. UK
Loss to the government
Circa £130 million PA
Never mind sack a 1000 sailors
should balance the books
Socrates fan
Any independent shopkeeper will not have the protection of a corporate policy, security guards, a superviser to call on for back-up. Also the level of sales affects a shopkeeper's income directly, unlike checkout staff at the supermarket. For all these reasons an independent shopkeeper is at the coalface and more dangerously exposed to ordinary market forces (certainly pressure from customers to make illegal sales and from cowboys to take on suspect stock) than employees of large stores. Whether shopkeepers are Asian or not isn't really relevant.
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