Drug store tobacco ban OK’D
This time, Albany County measure has enforcement clout
If you want to buy cigarettes in Albany County, don’t head to your local pharmacy.
In a 26-11 vote, Albany County legislators on Monday approved a ban on the sale of tobacco and nicotine-based products in pharmacies as well as stores that contain them.
Advocates of the law say the sale of these products — proven to be addictive, toxic and deadly — in stores that purport to improve health and wellness doesn’t make sense.
As one local pharmacist put it Monday evening at the Legislature meeting, “It behooves us to not be hypocritical.”
County Executive Daniel Mccoy must sign the law before it is filed with the state, and will take effect three months after that point.
Legislators Paul Burgdorf, Todd Drake, Mark Grimm, Brian Hogan, Patrice Lockart, Frank Mauriello, Richard Mendick, Ralph Signoracci, Christopher Smith, Travis Stevens and Peter Tunny all voted against the ban. Loudonville Republican Peter Crouse abstained and Menands Democrat Alison Mclean Lane was absent from the vote.
Some 33 retailers in the county will be affected, including Rite Aid, Price Chopper, Hannaford, Shoprite, Walgreens and Walmart.
A similar ban was proposed in 2012 and approved by the county Legislature in 2014, but Mccoy vetoed the measure because it lacked an enforcement mechanism. This time around, the ban allows the county health commissioner to impose a civil penalty of up to $500 a day for any store in violation of the law.
San Francisco was the first municipality to ban tobacco products from pharmacies in 2008.
Since then, similar ordinances have passed in a slew of other places in California and Massachusetts. In New York, Rockland County and New York City are the only municipalities with the bans in place.