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Happy 4th of July!
SFist Drinks: The Rio Grande Cocktail at 15 Romolo
Little ol' San Francisco made ink in USA Today as part of Mayor Gavin Newsom's clever plan to rule to the state of California.
What pressing issue is he tackling this time? Tobacco in drug stores. Specifically, he wants to ban harmful cigs from places like our beloved Walgreens. Newsom, it seems, "proposed an unprecedented city ban on drugstores selling tobacco products, including cigars, pipes and smokeless tobacco."
"This will be the beginning of a national movement," Newsom Evitas to USA Today.
The article goes on to say that drug stores are places for getting healthy--even though drug stores are one of the top retailers of the mylar food group--and we pretty much agree. Or we just don't care. Smokers will always be able to find their sweet release elsewhere, right?
What say you?
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Great, the only place left to get a cheap packet of cigs while getting crab shampoo is gone. Thanks Gavin.
I say Gavin Newsom is an asshole.
A) It's a legal product. It's legal to own it. It's legal to smoke and chew it. Stop erecting barriers between adult consumers and legal products.
B) If Gav thinks this is the way to make all of CA love and vote for him, then I hope he continues to act in this manner, so that he can be crushed come election time.
C) B, I totally love you verbing Evita's name. *smooch*
It is a drug at a drug store.
You can totally dismiss my argument by pointing out that drug stores don't typically sell alcohol. Please don't.
Yeah, this is stupid. If you're going to ban ciggies from pharmacies because they should only be selling healthy stuff, then they shouldn't be selling alcohol (some of 'em do), anything in the "mylar food group" (hee) or candy.
In fact, why not throw in all beverages (including water, unless it's in a fully organic and biodegradable container), nudie magazines, and anything made with plastic?
Hrrrummph.
I say anything that makes these stinky things less convenient to obtain is a-okay with me.
And before anyone starts bellyaching about their legal rights, it may be your legal right to make my clothes and hair stink as I walk behind you on my way to work. But it doesn't make you any less of an inconsiderate asshole.
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT. Maybe drug stores were places for getting healthy back when they were called "Five and Dimes" and the pharmacist wore a straw hat and was also the town barber. This is INSANE.
Y'know, Baskin-Robbins is a place for getting fat, but that doesn't mean the city needs to ban them from selling sorbet.
Gavin makes me want to barf! Why doesn't he do something productive like fix the potholes all over SF or work on MUNI. No he would rather propose something the will make the news and take away people's civil liberties in the process.
Don't cry for me, San Francisco!
All he does is ban or fine, but he doesn't actually contribute or produce anything.
@appetite
you'd be amazed at what the gav can produce and contribute.....
Are cigarettes really worse than all of the pharmaceutical crap you can get from behind those counters? The guy is an idiot. Who votes for this douche?
Who votes for him? People like the two girls in my law school class who voted for him because "he's cute and has pretty hair." You wanna talk about the dumbing down of society? I present Exhibit A.
I've met countless people who say "he's doing a great job," but when I ask "doing what?" I am only met with a blank stare.
Wow, you know my inner Libertarian grows daily here in SF. Soon it will be as big as Giganta and I shall make our city's buildings crumble with each step.
Much like bluecanary I get sick and tired of walking behind someone puffing out smoke. But I doubt banning tobacco at drugstores is going to dissuade people from getting them elsewhere, like at the numerous gas stations or convenience stores on every block.
1. Care Not Cash.
2. Gay Marriage.
3. No cigarettes in drugstores.
Three for three, Gav!
The City just hates chain stores in general and Walgreen's in particular. You can open a mom and pop drugstore and sell booze to elementary school kids, that's better than a Walgreen's as far as the planning commission is concerned:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/06/MN7J10H3VB.DTL
noble, yet misguided. tilting at windmills, apparently for effect.
I come from the people
They simply repel me
So Jenny Seibel me
Make a Friscotine rose
I have to be dazzling
I want to be hair-gel high!
They need their Ms. Wilsey,
And so do I.
*Sigh*
The logic of y'all upthread is deeply flawed.
At one time opiates were legal to buy in drugstores, and alcohol was not. That was insane, and limitations were put in place. The "legality" of the substance itself was beside the point.
We figured that out in, what, 1920?
Restrictions are (rightly) placed on when and where we can purchase alcohol. There's no reason why we can't do the same with tobacco, given its addictive nature.
That's the problem with reflexive bitching at the nanny state. Sometimes the nanny is right.
Generic, then isn't the *drug*store the most logical place to buy the nicotine-laced leaf? You've got a pharmacist right there.
The point is, did any single one of SF's citizens ask for this, or is the mayor just posturing?
I agree with Wsanders, seems like this is more anti-Walgreens, or chain stores, than anti-tobacco. If it was actually anti-tobacco, then why not go after all the stores that sell cigarettes, specifically cigarette stores?
Additionally, most anti-smoking legislation doesn't seem to really work here anyway...case in point being, last year's proposed 300% increase in cigarette taxes.
Gavin's obviously out to get attention, which when you consider his track record isn't really that surprising or even interesting. I do have to admit though, I find it amusing that people seem to think that not buying cigarettes at drug stores is going to curb smokers...I mean you can't buy trans fat laden food anymore, but I haven't seen a larger number of the population get any smaller...
@rroseselavy
Absolutely.
The drug store is also the most logical place to buy vicodin. Note the difficulty in buying vicodin from the cashier vs. obtaining it from the pharmacist.
Sorry, @ KatyG, not rose.
@Generic
Cigarettes don't have the same mind-altering effects as alcohol yet it's just as easy to purchase, so unless you're also suggesting that alcohol be even more regulated than it is now, I don't see what greater purpose it would serve...
I'm all for it -- as long as they sell pot instead of cigs.
"At one time opiates were legal to buy in drugstores, and alcohol was not. That was insane, and limitations were put in place."
Exactly. Now you can only buy opiates at grocery stores, mom and pop liquor stores, and of course dedicated opium/gift shops. The world is a much better place for it.
Andronico's has stopped selling tobacco products... on their own. No city pressure. And they expect to lose revenue.
"According to president and CEO Bill Andronico, selling tobacco didn't fit with the stores' basic philosophy, which emphasizes quality of life, sustainability (Andronico's only sells cage-free eggs, for example) and many fair trade products.
He expects a small but vocal opposition and, since tobacco-product sales are profitable, he also expects to see a drop in revenue."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/30/FDI7UJ524.DTL
If Andronico's wants to stop selling tobacco products on their own good for them. I'm not defending cigarettes, just against a ban singling out a particular type of business than will have no effect on smoking whatsoever. That and our mayor's cheap shot to get media coverage.
"I've met countless people who say "he's doing a great job," but when I ask "doing what?" I am only met with a blank stare."
Bluecanary nails it on the head.
Face it, most people in this city are only passing through and have little incentive to be truly politically engaged. In the long run, whatever Grusome Newsom does is of little relevance to the lives of those who praise his stupid looking head.
@ cowsaysmeow
Mind-altering effects are but one metric for gauging the impact of a particular drug, and aren't at all what's being targeted here. I think we can all agree it's the mortality rate. After all, no one's talking about cloves, are they?
@ what
So you'd like to go back to the time when the Coke™ had coke? Classy.
-----------------
For the record, I smoke -- Camel lights.
And no one I know aggressively disputes that Gavin Newsom is a douchebag.
But making this measure a referendum on his doucheyness is a red herring. Even a playboy publicity whore can have forward-thinking policies about restrictions on tobacco. There's literally a dealer on every corner, a privilege only shared by caffeine. And until half of all frappuccino drinkers start croaking, these kinds of proposals (draconian though they may seem) can't be dismissed out of hand.
@ Generic
Amusing that you would mention cloves, as they are actually illegal in New Mexico. Some weird shenanigans a few years back and the powers that be decided they were morally harmful.
@sagitta100
I think its fair if a business, such as Andronico's, chooses not to sell something, but I disagree with a city policy that sets out to limit the business's ability to sell something - especially when its an obvious ploy for attention and sympathy.
Well, there goes Brock's social life, then.
I can't speak for every part of town, but on my block down at the asscrack of the city - i.e. the block right before Daly City - the nearby Rite Aid is the closest thing we have to a corner convenience store. As such this seems like a move to try and push that sort of convenience store sales out of the drug stores (which tend to be chains) and into smaller corner stores (which tend to have terrible hours and almost always feel shady and run-down). As others have mentioned I find the idea that they still sell alcohol to be a bit odd based on this logic (hell, I moved out of Kansas where nobody other than liquor stores can sell anything stronger than 3.2 beer... not even any wine at grocery stores and no sales on Sunday so frankly being able to buy alcohol at drug stores still feels weird to me... not to mention corner liquor/convenience stores). I suspect that has more to do with the fact that he's a drunk and isn't willing to go after something he actually cares about.
Ultimately I don't smoke and I don't drink so I really don't care if they ban them from the city entirely.
I still wonder why in the hell he did this. It seems odd, unwanted, and I'm willing to bet that nobody is going to be lauding him for it... just angry smokers complaining that it's continually getting harder for them to smoke.
Want to make a real impact? Make it illegal to smoke on city streets/sidewalks. I really hate getting stuck behind someone blowing smoke into my face behind them and for some reason smokers almost never seem to realize that throwing their butts on the ground is littering and completely inappropriate.
Can't you also buy most of the ingredients to make meth at Walgreens? Let's cross off the cold meds, cleaners and various chemicals. And no, I don't have a favorite meth recipe but my lasagne brings Italians to their knees.
Don't like 'em, don't buy 'em.
That simple.
(read as chris crocker) leave cigarettes alone!