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BELANGER: Race to Extinction 

Imagine for a moment, your stores' back bars and tobacco sections as they are today. Now remove all flavored SKUs -- the Black & Mild Wine and Cream cigars, the grape and peach Swisher Sweets, the coffee little cigars and the wintergreen moist snuff. How much revenue would you lose if this were to happen, not even counting the ancillary purchases that come with these items? And for a moment, remove menthol items from the racks as well. The tobacco category becomes barren.

Ask yourself this -- can the stores survive without these products, and the traffic and sales they bring in? Unless the stores have a stellar foodservice offer, the answer is most likely no.

If the convenience industry allows the FDA to push its limits on a recently enacted law, it may be the end of the important category -- at least as we know it today. . . .

The fate of all the flavored tobacco items in your stores is in your hands. Help the efforts of NACS, NATO, and other tobacco groups and manufacturers. Help elect lawmakers who stand for free enterprise and against the nanny-state. Inform your customers of impending legislation and its impact. It is imperative the industry does not let the FDA put a chokehold on the tobacco category in convenience stores.

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