The Department of Health has announced a UK-wide consultation on plain packaging will take place in the spring, and that it will involve ministers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and will be accompanied by an independent evidence review.

Anti smoking campaigners argue that putting tobacco products in plain packaging will make them far less attractive to consumers, particularly young people as well as making the health warnings stand out more. But tobacco companies argue that the move will make counterfeit cigarettes much harder to spot.

In Australia, tobacco manufacturer Philip Morris has launched a legal challenge over the Government’s plans to introduce plain tobacco packaging from next year.

Small stores in the UK believe it would place a huge burden on their businesses if tobacco was to be sold in plain packs – on top of the impending tobacco display ban, currently due to be introduced for small shops in 2015.

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Conservative MP Andrew Bingham raised the topic at PMQ’s yesterday saying that many of the small businesses in his constituency have complained “bitterly” about the levels of bureaucracy they have to adhere to when dealing with public bodies.

Echoing a promise made by deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg a few weeks ago Cameron told MP’s “we’ve introduced the red tape challenge so that all of these rules are published online and businesses and individuals can tell us which ones can be scrapped without actually harming public safety.  At the same time we have the one in one out rule so that ministers cannot introduce a new regulation until they’ve scrapped an exisiting regulation.”

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Phillip Morris is suing the government on the grounds that the new legislation will breach a bilateral investment treaty as well as making fake brands and counterfeit cigarettes far harder to stop.

Australia’s Minister for Health and Ageing Nicola Roxon said while the tobacco industry was “fighting to protect its profits, we are fighting to protect lives”.

Have a look at this informative, albeit amusingly over the top, video from the British American Tobacco company outlining their arguments against the use of plain packaging: http://youtu.be/lpFx7pLy2L0

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This message follows promised action by Vince Cable  to axe more than 100 regulations that ensnare retailers including simplifying rules and signage surrounding age-restricted goods on sales in independent shops.

It’ encouraging to see that small businesses are on the government radar, so when Mr Clegg pledges to make tax laws simpler and less costly and asks for details from retailers on how the tax system could be made less bureauchratic, independent retailers should take him at his word and provide some ideas. Why not share your thoughts with us on betterRetailing?

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Ads comparing prices are common, but you could risk arrest for the same practice

News last week that a Guardian journalist was told he was breaking the law for writing down the prices of some bottled water certainly underlines the lengths that many multiples will go to to protect themselves.

Patrick Collinson was noting down the price points of some Highland Spring sparkling water when a store manager asked him “Excuse me, what are you doing?” After explaining, Mr Collinson was shocked to be told “You’re not allowed to do that. It’s illegal. Where are you from? Are you from the media?”

While in this case, yes Mr Collinson was from the media, it seems quite strange that any individual could be stopped and given such a hard time for simply checking prices.

The managers of the branch eventually conceded that perhaps this wasn’t against the laws of the land, but certainly did contravene company policy. The only way one would be allowed to check the prices would be to “take the item to the till and pay for it there. The price will be on the receipt.”

So while you might risk being thrown out by security guards if you attempt to benchmark your prices against the Tesco down the road, one wonders how exactly the multiples go about creating their much-heralded price comparison adverts, like the one pictured here?

Presumably, as the Tesco manager suggested, they buy all of the products and check the receipts? No wonder the multiples are all turning over so much each year!

The existence of both best before and use by dates causes confusion amongst customers, according to a new report, leading to around £12bn of edible food being thrown away each year.

The further complication of display until dates, used by retailers for stock control, causes people to say ‘I’m not sure about this; better throw it away’, according to Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman.

Will this simplification of the rules help or hinder retailers? Display until dates are extremely useful for staff so that they know an item is soon to be unsellable. Without it there could be a danger of increasing wastage in shops, offsetting any wastage savings the consumer might make.

The British Retail Consortium think that taking all but the use by date away is a bad idea, and that better consumer education is needed on what the various dates mean.

If an item has been on your shelf long enough to go past its best before date, when the quality of the product is past its best, then surely you should be asking yourself “Why am I stocking this item?”

What do you think? Should we drop the best before and display until dates, only leaving use by for food safety? Or should retailers and government try harder to educate consumers?

DEFRA state clearly in their guide for the storage of used batteries that there is a risk of fire and chemical leak. The news of a large fire at one of the battery recycling centres in Hampshire certainly fails to put one at ease.

This is the second fire at a battery recycling depot and it raises questions over the battery compliance schemes in the UK, as the industry’s ability to deliver battery recycling in a safe manner. This is likely to affect retailers as there is only a small number of recycling plants in the UK.

As the system clogs up, I wonder if the battery collection services will suffer? We will see, if they do and have to hold more batteries on site it will certainly increase our risk.

This week alone my customers have left a Lithium-ion laptop battery, a large 6 volt lantern battery in our recycling container. As we assess them all as having a higher risk factor than the more common 1.5 volt batteries such as the AA, we remove them for safer storage until the next collection.

As Parliament resumes today, I have emailed my MP, Nick Herbert to raise my concerns.

The Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) has called on High Streets Tsar Mary Portas to look out for the interests of independent retailers when she submits her report at the end of this year.

Portas has been the poster girl for retailers ever since her series Queen of Shops blasted onto our screens two years ago, and following her appearances at Pro Retail earlier this year.

She was employed by David Cameron to add some star power to the government’s High Streets review, and the ACS have presented the case for recommending stronger ‘town centre first’ national planning policies, and investment in high streets through business rates income.

The research presented shows that for every town centre development in the pipeline, there is almost four times as much out of town retail development. With 30million sq ft of out-of-town developments in the pipeline, equivalent to the entire City of London, this is a vast imbalance.

“We will continue to work with Mary Portas to promote radical changes around out of town parking, business rates and planning policy to ensure the future of our high streets,” said James Lowman, ACS Chief Executive.

Do you think Mary, with her star power, can do enough to save the ailing High Street?

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With the UK Government considering plain packaging as the next step on the Tobacco Control agenda after the display ban, retailers in this country need to be aware of what governments in other countries are doing. Since the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention For Tobacco Control (FCTC) was set up in 1997, the UK has been a significant supporter, with Parliament passing one law after another that have kept this country in step with the treaty.

So where does this leave us, the UK cigarette retailers? We have seen that the substantial lobbying campaign that occurred during the passage of the display ban legislation eased some of the draconian regulations that were first proposed but did not stop the ban becoming law.

I suspect that the Australian government’s plain packaging wish – if or when it becomes law – will be the start of the process under which the FCTC will recommend many countries bring forward legislation for plain tobacco packaging.

Tobacco and cigarettes have been and still are an expected product in the convenience and CTN channel. For a significant number of retailers tobacco remains a key part of their business, but for many retailers the profit that tobacco generates is not a major contributor to their bottom line.

The question for me is what do we do with our tobacco space when the category in our store is no longer viable?

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An area of legislation that does not get much publicity is solvent abuse. Retailers in England and Wales are effected by the Intoxicating Substances (Supply) Act 1985 and in Scotland there is the Solvent Abuse (Scotland) Act 1983. The website Frank says:

“Solvent misuse isn’t illegal. Although, it’s illegal in England and Wales for shopkeepers to sell you intoxicating substances if they think you’re likely to be inhaling them.

In Scotland the law is different but the effect is similar. Under Scottish law you can be prosecuted for ‘recklessly’ selling substances to any age group if you suspect they’re going to inhale them.

Since October 1999, the law makes it an offence to supply gas lighter refills to anyone under the age of 18. This law applies to the whole of the UK.”

I was surprised recently to discover that we were being targeted by a substance abuser. The young man was buying butane gas from us on what became a very regular basis. He was visiting our shop at different times of the day and being served by different assistants. When one of our assistance realised what he was probably doing we removed our remaining stock from display.

In our affluent village community I did not expect to be confronted with the issue of solvent abuse and I guess our action has only pushed the young man on to another shop for his supplies. Protecting ourselves from this piece of legislation is not simple as this incident illustrated to us. Unlike restricting purchases for age where one can ask to see proof of age with solvent abuse we have to look for other indicators like multiple purchasing of gas.

This rather detailed management circular produced by Glasgow City Council for heads of schools give good guidance for what to lookout for.

ACS Chief Executive, James Lowman said on Twitter, “Retailers need to get insurance claims in quickly (7 days) under the Riot Damages Act (1886) which STILL covers incidents like this.”

Talking Retail spoke to City law firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain LLP who explained that claims for riot damage must be filed typically within 7 days. If they do so the insurer can make a claim for damages against the police under the Riot Damages Act.

I visited a retailer in Hackney this morning who had lost everything. The shop counter was gone, torn to pieces, and not a shred of stock was left. The image featured here is from his shop, and as you can see, the shelves are bare.

He said to me that he had no contents insurance, so this piece of legislation could really help him. Meanwhile, the ACS have been issuing retailers with advice ahead of possible continued violence this evening:

1. If violence is occurring in the locality, and if in doubt, close your store and use shutters where possible to protect the business.
2. Consider where you and your staff will be safest, and go there swiftly.

Rav Garcha, who owns two shops in the midlands is a testament to this having earlier tweeted, “Do not attempt to protect ur business. Please all if u have a business stay away do not get involved. We were hit 4 times while we were in repairing damage.”

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