Nate Barr says he is diligent in making sure no minors buy vape products from the store. Photo / Leanne Warr
Tararua District Council is being encouraged to do more towards Smokefree 2025, including looking into the issue of vape shops near schools.
But a Dannevirke retailer says he is already going above and beyond to ensure vape products aren't being sold to minors.
Kerry Hocquard, a community advocate from the Cancer Society, spoke to councillors in a meeting last week on the Smokefree Environments and Tobacco-Related Products Amendment Bill currently before the Select Committee and the action plan for Smokefree 2025.
She said the bill proposed that nicotine be reduced to very low levels and the number of tobacco retailers be significantly reduced.
"At the moment these are focused primarily in our most deprived neighbourhoods. The sad thing is, these are concentrated around schools."
In the Tararua district, there were 33 tobacco outlets and all but five were within 1km of a school, Hocquard told councillors.
In Dannevirke, there was one vape specialty shop which was within 1km of a school and 12 tobacco outlets, also within 1km of a school.
General manager of Coastline Vapes in Dannevirke, Nate Barr said he and his staff were extremely diligent when selling the product to the point where he will not allow a parent with a child to enter the shop.
They were also very strict about checking identification.
"Other retailers are not being as diligent as they should be."
The bill also proposed that retailers selling vape products get approval from the director general of health.
Barr said specialty shops were licensed and there was already a lot of legislation.
"It's not working."
Hocquard said about 1.4 billion cigarette butts went into waterways every year and a smokefree environment would help to reduce the litter as well as create healthier workplaces.
While smoking rates nationally were about 13 per cent in the 2018 census, Tararua district was still at about 19 per cent.
Hocquard said what was really concerning was that when the statistics were looked at by age, 68 per cent of the district's population between the ages of 30 and 64 were smoking.
"These are not young people. These are the parents, these are the leaders of the next generation."
Barr said he went a "step beyond" to ensure minors weren't buying the products, but he believed adults or parents were buying the products and passing them on to minors, which was creating a problem in schools.
"I have no problem working with schools," Barr said.
"I can only do so much and I'm already doing more than I'm meant to."
Barr started smoking as a young teenager and said that if he "knew then what I know now, I never would have started".
He said the health problems smoking caused were a strain on the health system.
Vaping did help those wanting to quit smoking and Barr had seen it happen in hundreds of people.
He said he would help people strategise and put a plan in place, but the key thing was people needed to want to quit smoking.
Barr also saw a problem with the disposable vape products which were cheaper and meant that even if a parent caught their child using them, it was not as much of an issue throwing it away, unlike the more expensive options.
He said the onus needed to fall on parents to stop their children from vaping, rather than pointing fingers at vape shops.
"We're not part of the problem. We're here to help people. That's one of the fundamentals of why we got into this in the first place."
Councillors were told that the Tararua district was also trailing behind other councils in working towards Smokefree 2025.
The council had so far only committed to smokefree green spaces, while others had committed to smokefree environment policies in council buildings, outdoor dining, civic spaces, social housing and beaches etc, Hocquard said.
"I'd really like to encourage you to expand on that. You need to. For the sake of your community. Because each of these things that each council has looked at, have all helped to reduce the smoking rates in the community."
Hocquard said councils had recognised that they needed to go wider to help denormalise smoking.
"We're doing it for the next generation. We want to make sure that they're growing in smokefree environments."
While councils were worried about enforcement, it was about education.
"When we do this, we have to do it by using signs, having education, making sure that people are aware that this is a commitment that's been made by this council."
Hocquard said it was necessary to reduce smoking rates as well as cancer rates.
"We need to stop people from becoming addicted to smoking in the first place, stop them from starting to smoke, and support people to quit smoking."