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Under pressure from anti-smoking activists, Price Chopper has hidden its cigarettes behind frosted doors and removed all tobacco advertising from its 116 grocery stores. The unmistakable red lines of Marlboro cigarettes are now blurred into a pink blob behind a thick layer of opaque plastic film.
"We wouldn't let a bag of spinach that's tainted sit out there on the shelf, but we let this product that addicts people and causes disease and death," said Judy Rightmyer of the Capital District Tobacco Free Coalition, the group that persuaded Price Chopper to cover up the tobacco. "I'm impressed that they are doing what they can to stop promoting the product, and I'm hoping they'll follow Wegmans' lead and stop the sale of tobacco."
The Rochester-based Wegmans chain, which has more than 70 stores, is one of several New York supermarket companies that have completely removed tobacco from their stores. Scarsdale-based DeCicco Marketplace and Buffalo's Budwey's Supermarkets have made the same decision.
Rightmyer approached Price Chopper more than a year ago with petitions and surveys showing that most New Yorkers don't want to see cigarette advertising, especially when it's deployed in front of kids.
"It was really a very logical point about not enticing the next potential generation of smokers by muting the visual impact of the (tobacco) products and brands themselves," said Mona Golub, spokeswoman for the Rotterdam-based chain.
Rightmyer said Hannaford Supermarkets, which is based in Maine but has many stores in the Capital Region, stopped returning calls from the tobacco coalition. Hannaford declined to comment for this story.
Over the past six months, Price Chopper experimented with several ways to cover up the locked tobacco cabinets. It finally settled on two layers of a film that mimics etched glass, Golub said. The white cabinets have prices printed on plain white paper and black lettering that identifies them as a "Cigarette Center" or "Tobacco Center."
Golub said Price Chopper, which has stores throughout the Northeast, has no plans to stop selling tobacco.
"We are justified selling a product that is both legalized and tax revenue-producing for New York State, and therefore shouldn't be villainized," she said.
Supermarkets have been receiving pressure from state health officials, who have launched a campaign aimed at making cigarettes socially unacceptable for smokers and sellers. The state Health Department ran newspaper ads in April that focused on cigarette sales at grocery stores, even though more smokers buy cigarettes at mini-marts, Golub said.
"We thought it was unjust to single us out and publicly defame supermarkets while allowing smaller stores and gas stations to operate unscathed," she said.
Tobacco sales account for about 3 percent of revenue in grocery stores, according to the Food Alliance Industry of New York State, which represents large and small grocery stores. But convenience stores derive between 10 percent to 25 percent of their revenue from tobacco, according to the New York Association of Grocery Stores.
That profit disparity gives tobacco companies much greater leverage over convenience store chains such as Stewart's Shops, the Saratoga Springs-based company that has more than 300 stores in upstate New York and Vermont.
The contracts Stewart's Shops currently maintains with the cigarette companies do not allow the convenience store chain to hide the tobacco products, said Tom Mailey, Stewart's spokesman.
"They require a certain amount of visibility," Mailey said. "But we have been successful in keeping the shops pretty free of signs."
The anti-smoking coalition is talking with convenience stores owners, Rightmyer said, but with 700 licensed tobacco sellers in the Capital Region, that effort will take time.
Cathleen F. Crowley can be reached at 454-5438 or ccrowley@timesunion.com. | 
