Small businesses see an impact of up to 25% on sales due to the law against the display of cigars

The small merchants of the country warned this Monday that their sales could decrease up to 25% with a great impact on the retail economy, if the bill promoted by the Ministry of Health of ban the display of cigars in stores and close smoking spaces in restaurants.

In addition, the regulations that are under discussion in the National Commission for Regulatory Improvement (Conamer) “will strengthen the informal market, the market for illicit and contraband cigarettes operated and financed by gangs of bandits that dominate daily life in many territories of the country with impunity,” by prohibiting a legal product, said the National Alliance of Small Businesses (ANPEC).

The sale of cigarettes in this channel means 25% of their monthly ticket for direct and indirect sales, since consumers, when going for a pack of cigarettes, end up buying more products, that is, their sale alone It is a true engine of the economy of small businesses”, he warned.

The small merchants demanded that the head of Cofepris, Alejandro Ernesto Svarch Peréz, take into account “the overwhelming opposition of small businesses” to this decree expressed in the Conamer consultation; to reformulate said proposals with more sensitive and down-to-earth measures before they are published in the DOF (Official Gazette of the Federation) and end up being a dead letter and an active narrative for extortion.

Of being forced to hide cigarette packs in the drawer, the economic impact on small businesses would occur at a very bad time, since the harmful effects of the covid-19 pandemic they continue to raise the cost of living with the worst of the taxes that consumers have to pay: inflation, which harms the most impoverished sectors of the population. In these moments that we all live and suffer, deeply inflationary, we must not forget that the last report is 8.53% inflation and 16% food inflation.