(2 Apr 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Brussels – 27 March 2025
1. Wide of press and tobacco shop owner behind her counter, with cigarettes on display
2. Close of packs of cigarettes
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Brussels – 1 April 2025
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Frank Vandenbroucke, Belgian Health Minister: ++STARTS ON SHOT 1; PARTLY OVERLAID WITH SHOTS 4 AND 5++
"From now on it is illegal to have cigarettes or vapes on display, that is visible in a store. It is not a prohibition to buy this stuff. You can buy it, but you have to ask the vendor. And so they should be either in a separate room or stored in a drawer that is not making them visible immediately. The reason is that we know very well that smoking is an addiction for many people, but buying cigarettes or vapes is also an impulse. And you should avoid that say the ordinary customer who enters a shop for something else, see cigarettes or vapes on display and then the impulse is to buy it."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Brussels – 27 March 2025
4. Various of shop owner behind her counter and cigarettes hidden by curtain
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Brussels – 1 April 2025
5. Various of people smoking outside
6. Man smoking
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Frank Vandenbroucke, Belgian Health Minister: ++STARTS ON PREVIOUS SHOT; PARTLY OVERLAID WITH SHOT 8++
"Two people start smoking per hour on average. Often young people, often minors, even if that is illegal. And so our ambition is to stop this killer. And our ambition is to have a smoke free generation by 2040."
8. Customer and shopkeeper in vape shop
9. SOUNDBITE (French) Emilie Fayt, Brussels resident:
"I think that it is a good measure because I would not like my child to start smoking, because quitting smoking is really difficult."
10. SOUNDBITE (French) Malak Chatouany, Brussels student: ++PARTLY OVERLAID WITH SHOTS AND 11 AND 12++
"I do not believe that this is a good idea, because we are talking about addictions and people won’t stop (smoking) all the sudden only because it (tobacco products) is no longer on display in shops."
11. Wide of men smoking
12. Shopkeeper in vape shop
STORYLINE:
Belgium implemented on Tuesday a new regulation that prevents cigarettes or any tobacco products to be put on display in shops.
This display ban aims at limiting the visibility of cigarettes and other addictive products, with the hope to have less people buying them impulsively.
Supermarkets and other shops bigger than 400 square meters are also now forbidden to sell cigarettes.
These measures are part of a health plan to get rid of tobacco, supervised by Belgian Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke, and which started on January 1st with the ban of disposable e-cigarettes in the country.
"Our ambition is to have a smoke free generation by 2040" explained Vandenbroucke, who denies any ban of cigarettes.
"From now on it is illegal to have cigarettes or vapes on display, that is visible in a store. It is not a prohibition to buy this stuff. You can buy it, but you have to ask the vendor", he said.
There was no specific guidance or material provided to tobacco shops owner.
Each shop had to find a solution, from hand made plastic curtains to sophisticated shelves that automatically lit up when opened.
"It is annoying because they (the government) haven’t given us any supply, they should have provided the necessary equipment (to hide cigarettes)," said press and tobacco shop owner Jenny Van Vaerenbergh.
She decided to adapt plastic curtains originally made to prevent bugs from entering her house and hang them on her cigarettes shelves.
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