"It certainly would increase the potential for robberies and also increase the attraction of black market or illegal tobacco, and that's something the government does not derive an income out of," he said.

Some of the association's members had chosen to stop selling cigarettes because of the security risk to both shops and staff, he said.

While he said the newsagents' associate does not dispute the government's policy of trying to reduce the amount people smoked, any impact on cigarette sales would affect small businesses.

"Any additional increase, purely for the sake of improving the government's bottom line, would be at the expense of small businesses, particularly newsagents and other small retail outlets," he said.

As tax increases, the amount retailers receive from sales remains the same.