Waiting game

BY JOHN DECOSTE

jdecoste@kentvilleadvertiser.ca

NovaNewsNow.com

The owners of a Kentville tobacco store are playing a waiting game to see if they will be charged for non-compliance under the province’s tobacco regulations.

Bob Gee and his son Jeff operate Mader’s Tobacco Store, an Aberdeen Street fixture since 1929, but since last fall in violation of provincial regulations for improperly displaying their tobacco products and for selling items other than tobacco.

“Last month, we received a 30-day warning letter. That deadline has now passed and we’re waiting now to see if we’ll be charged,” Bob Gee said Wednesday. “Other than that, nothing has changed since last summer.”

Gee says he made a business decision in January of last year, when the regulations took effect, “that we would stay the course and see this through.” And while it wouldn’t be his first choice, he hopes he’s charged “so we’ll finally know where we stand.

“I don’t like to,” he says, “but I don’t feel we have a choice.” According to the regulations, “I’m selling an illegal product here. They’re essentially telling me I’m guilty of doing my job. I shouldn’t have to operate a business under those conditions.”

Two problems

To Gee, he has two problems. First, “the government can come into my shop and dictate to me what I can and can’t sell.” He’s permitted to sell “lottery, tobacco, tobacco products and accessories, and nothing else.”

That, he said, “is the first part, but it gets worse. I’m a tobacco store, but I can’t display the tobacco products I’m trying to sell because it’s illegal, even though tobacco is still a legal substance in Canada and it’s perfectly legal to offer it for sale.”

Gee has argued, “if we do what they want us to do, we would increase our workload five or sixfold.” Moreover, “our workload would be moving in one direction and our productivity in the other, and I’m not interested in that kind of business either.”

Gee says he requested “special grandfathering status in perpetuity to protect me and my family, or anyone who might wish to purchase the business,” due to the age of his store and its status as a community landmark, but his request was refused.

“I spent a lot of 2007 on this issue,” he said, with no satisfaction, either personally or in business terms. “The last meeting I attended was not positive, and I’m being polite in saying that.”

Right to free enterprise being eroded

Gee is “also worried about the eroding of our our rights and freedoms – our right to free enterprise; the kind of things our democracy is built on. It’s bigger than a business issue, and it makes you wonder where it’s going to stop.”

Besides the effects on his business – he would like to retire and son Jeff is interested in taking over, but is understandably in limbo due to the uncertainty – Gee says, “I’ve made a personal commitment, to myself, my family and my business, to see this through.”

And while he’s pleased with the amount of local support he has received, he said, “I don’t want people to feel sorry for me.” If he loses his fight, “everybody is the loser here, whether or not you’re a smoker and regardless of how you feel about tobacco.”