Utrecht City Council has approved regulations preventing the establishment of new specialized tobacconists within the city limits for at least the next year. This measure is being implemented

one year ahead of national legislation that will prohibit supermarkets from selling tobacco products. The council anticipates that stores may attempt to circumvent the restrictions by creating separate spaces within their premises where cigarettes can still be sold.

Utrecht, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam city councils have jointly written to the government, urging the formulation of new regulations specifically targeting tobacconists. They argue that the existing legislation does not provide local councils with the necessary legal tools to control the number of specialized cigarette shops. Utrecht's health chief, Eelco Eerenberg, expressed deep concerns about the situation from a public health perspective.

According to RTL Nieuws, junior health minister Martijn van Ooijen has sent a letter to supermarkets, urging them not to establish separate shops for selling tobacco products once the ban is enforced. Currently, around 20% of the Dutch population are regular smokers, but the government set a goal in 2018 to reduce this number to just 5% by 2040. Photo by Pepijntje, Wikimedia commons.