Convenience store owners have slammed the ACT government's plan to further restrict tobacco sales, dismissing it as a hare-brained scheme that will play into the hands of the major supermarkets.
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The government has put out a discussion paper on tobacco sales, calling for feedback by May 12.
It has a range of suggestions designed to further reduce smoking rates by limiting access to tobacco, with the aim of reducing smoking nationally to 10 per cent by 2018. In Canberra, 11 to 12 per cent of people smoke now.
Suggestions include increasing licence fees for shops that sell tobacco, and limiting the number of shops able to sell tobacco, or restricting numbers in each suburb. Sales could be limited to certain hours of the day, or to certain places, such as licensed premises.
The chief executive of the Australasian Association of Convenience Stores, Jeff Rogut, feared if the scheme took hold in the ACT it could spread to other states, which then might compete to outdo each other with still more draconian measures.
He said convenience store owners were ''shaking their heads in disbelief''. ''Yet again somebody somewhere is coming up with some wild ideas without consulting industry, without really understanding flow-on and effects of such schemes,'' he said.
Mr Rogut's group represents "organised" convenience stores, including petrol stations, 7-Elevens, and larger convenience stores, where he said about 36 per cent of store sales (excluding petrol) were from tobacco, rising to 40 per cent for smaller operators, so it was a major contributor to profitability.
Newsagents have expressed similar concerns, worried about being squeezed out of the market by increasing licence fees.
Mr Rogut said plain packaging had not reduced sales, with revenue from cigarettes up 7 per cent in 2013.
"There has to be a point where the government says we're going to ban this product outright or we've got to let people get on with the ability to sell a legal product equitably," he said.
