Published March 2024
The opening of two new tobacco and vaping stores in our local community has been of great concern to my constituents. Last year, a new one of these stores opened in Stonyfell, less than 100 metres from St Peter's Girls' School. Just as recently as last week, a similar store opened on Kensington Road in Marryatville, close to both Marryatville Primary School and Marryatville High School.
My community has some significant concerns about these new stores. I wrote to the Minister for Health about the Stonyfell store last year to highlight some of these concerns, including its proximity to a school, whether it is complying with relevant advertising and consumer standards—noting that it is, in fact, undertaking letterbox drops advertising cigarettes and that the store logo is a stylised cigarette—and also whether the store holds appropriate licences to be selling tobacco and e-cigarettes.
I hope the minister can take some fairly urgent action on this issue. We certainly do not want illegal tobacco and vape stores operating in our area, and we do not really want them operating near our local schools at all.
