Tobacco.org

• Self-styled sleuths enforce cigarette ban  

As if smokers did not have it bad enough already, a group of 'enforcers' have been roaming around the Najma area of the city asking shopkeepers to stop selling cigarettes. While some shopowners have complied, others are selling cigarettes from literally under the counter.

A request for a package or a carton of cigarttes sees the counter salesman or his assistant scurrying to a back room to fetch the 'contraband'. In other cases, cigarettes have discreetly been stashed in the cash drawer while in other cases, they are kept in innocuous plastic carry bags.

A shopkeeper told The Peninsula yesterday when asked why cigarettes are no longer at hand: "One day a group of bearded men came to the shop and asked us to stop selling cigarttes. They were mutawas I think and certainly not from the municipality." . . .

Shopkeepers say the gentleman visitors were courteous and in no way threatening. A shopkeeper said: "We felt it was safest to listen to them. In any case, we are still selling cigarettes although not displaying them openly."

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