Contraband cigarettes are hurting the health of bargain-hunting Ontarians, siphoning off millions of dollars from the government and costing convenience store owners their livelihood.
With almost 50 % of all cigarettes sold now being illegal, the association of convenience stores wants politicians to do something about it.
The politicians agree there's a big problem, but both Brant MP Phil McColeman and Brant MPP Dave Levac said the first order of business is to educate consumers as to how they're contributing to an illegal business.
"Buying contraband is illegal," said McColeman on Tuesday.
"In some ways it's become acceptable in people's minds but it's not. In my public safety committee meetings, we've even discussed making it a criminal offence if you're caught with contraband cigarettes and levying a penalty on the individual. We haven't moved on it but that would be a deterrent."
The MP has a lot of sympathy for convenience store owners who are feeling the pinch as they watch their lucrative tobacco sales dry up.
According to their lobbying group --the Canadian Convenience Stores Association --tobacco sales bring in customers who then tend to spend on other items in the stores. The sales are critical to staying open, with 64% of all sales coming from tobacco products --the primary reason people go into the stores.
The association says that's not the only worry. The contraband cigarettes mean kids are starting earlier, smoking more --and often worse quality smokes --and the underground industry means there's a huge increase in organized crime.
"My neighbour owns a convenience store and has shared his concerns with me on this issue," says McColeman. "This is a real big issue for them with stores closing, jobs lost and people going on welfare."
Others -- like the folks behind the Non-Smokers' Rights Association -- say the CCSA is a front for big tobacco and the campaign against contraband is a lot of whining about lost revenue.
Dave Bryans, president of the CCSA, who brought the campaign to Brantford Tuesday in a RV parked outside of Euro Convenience Store on Charing Cross Street, confirmed that tobacco companies help fund his association.
"Coca Cola, Pepsi, the lottery people, the candy companies and tobacco companies are all members and pay associate fees," said Bryans.
The association deals with tobacco issues plus other concerns of its members, such as credit card fees, training and education, safe food handling and statutory holidays.
And he's upfront about the association's preference that people buy their cigarettes from a store where they're legal and a business owner can count on plenty of ancillary purchases being made.
The stores in his association are heavily regulated about displaying and selling tobacco but smoke huts have no such constrictions.
"If the government decides it's going to be a free-for-all, so be it, but right now it's only half a free-for- all. Today someone can pull into this parking lot, open their trunk and sell cigarettes illegally."
Bryans said the annual collection and analysis of cigarette butts from high schools in Brantford confirmed that about 35 % of the cigarettes being smoked are contraband.
The butts at Pauline Johnson Collegiate were the worst with 45.7% of them contraband. At BCI, they were 39.7% and at St. John's College they were 19.2%.
According to Bryans, the coming of the HST will just make the situation worse because taxes are already being paid earlier in the selling process and the HST will lead to a double taxed product.
He's not overly happy with either level of government but says at least the federal government has put money into enforcement and education. The Ontario government, he says, has done nothing.
Those are fighting words to MPP Levac.
"I'm supportive of anything that will reduce illegal activity but these folks are lacking understanding of the complexity of the situation," Levac said.
"We have the federal government, provincial government, territories, illegal gangs, state issues all coming into play and to portray (me) as not caring is wrong-headed and not useful."
Levac said that, if a store can't stay open without heavy reliance on tobacco, maybe it shouldn't be open.
He also noted there have been charges laid.
"We're catching more of those tractor trailers, more catches at the border and getting cars with their trunks filled with cigarettes on the highways. We need to educate people that if you're filling up your trunk with contraband cigarettes you're breaking the law."
Bryans said he would like to see Six Nations to lower the allocation of cigarettes per band member to a reasonable personal use quota instead of the current laws that allow bands to apply for quotas of up to 1,000 cartons per year for every man, woman and child on a reserve.
"Plus Six Nations smoke shacks have no covered walls and no "We expect ID" program. "We've got to do something more than sitting around and pretending it's not happening."
Levac said the convenience stores should be looking at helping to educate the consumer instead of trying to embarrass the governments.
McColeman said the campaign outlined by the CCSA is a great step and he wants to see all the stakeholders involved fighting to stop people from starting to smoke in the first place.
And Wais Qoraishi, the owner of the Euro Dollar store, said he's hurting.
He's diversified into selling tomatoes, dancing flowers, hats and plastic bowls in his large store but it's a constant struggle.
"I try to make the lowest price possible. Some of my customers go to the reserve. Sometimes they come back and tell me, 'I'm buying them on the reserve.' People are after cheaper stuff."