Refusal to overturn ban on displaying cigarettes questioned

With the argument that displaying merchandise is not the same as advertising them, the National Alliance of Small Merchants (Anpec) called on the federal government, the Ministry of Health and the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) to reformulate the proposed Regulation of the General Law for Tobacco Control.
This proposal proposes an explicit ban on the display of cigars and tobacco products in all establishments and points of sale where they are marketed, as well as further limiting spaces in public places, such as restaurants and hotels, where smoking is allowed.
The proposal was published on July 7 on the website of the National Commission for Regulatory Improvement (Conamer) in order to receive comments from citizens, social organizations and companies. As of October 26, there were more than 400 comments on the draft. On August 4, Conamer asked Cofepris for extensions and corrections to the proposal, which arrived on October 20 with a broader justification for the prohibitions, but without altering the content of the proposal.
Given this scenario, Anpec considered that Cofepris makes an error of interpretation by prohibiting the exhibition of cigarette packs to the public because it considers it an advertising action, since these are different concepts, so the proposed regulation would exceed what was established in the modifications to the General Law for Tobacco Control that entered into force on February 17 of this year.
“Thus, in what head can it be stated that the act of displaying a legal merchandise on the shelves of the shops is an act of advertising, nothing more false of all falsehood, this regulatory measure goes against the same spirit of the General Law for Tobacco Control and even exceeds it, resulting in an unconstitutional normative decree “, said Cuauhtemoc Rivera, president of Anpec.
Although it is not yet a measure that is already a reality, given that the regulation has not been published in the Official Gazette of the Federation, the prohibition of displaying packs of cigarettes at points of sale generated voices against it.
“This measure violates the right to freedom of trade, curtails the right to free competition and steals the fundamental right of free choice of the consumer when buying,” Rivera added.
In its response, Cofepris mentioned that there are at least 66 countries in the world that already consider the adoption of 100% smoke-free spaces, while there are at least 57 countries in which all forms of advertising and promotion of tobacco are already prohibited, while there are already 43 that explicitly prohibit its exhibition. 
They are Benin, Brunei Darussalam, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guyana, Iraq, Ireland, Kenya, Kosovo, Madagascar, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Namibia, Nepal, New Zealand, Niue, Pakistan, Panama, Republic of Moldova, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Tajikistan, Thailand, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkmenistan, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uganda, Uruguay and Venezuela. 
However, ANPEC spoke out in defense of freedom of trade and reiterated that freedom of consumer choice and freedom of competition are fundamental rights of Mexicans.
Negative effects
When setting its position on the regulatory proposal, the representative body of small traders said that it is an unconstitutional measure that aims to impose itself above the law and warned of the economic consequences it will have on the sector of small traders.
According to this organization, the sale of cigarettes in small shops means 25% of their monthly ticket not only for the direct sale of these products, but because consumers when going to buy a pack end up acquiring more products.
With this, an affectation will be generated to the more than 1 million 200 thousand points of sale of the traditional supply channel, source of employment of more than 2 million people and maintenance of 5 million. 
Untimely?
On October 24, a representative of a cigar company sent an official letter to Conamer in which he requested that the proposal be rejected because Cofepris failed to meet the deadlines to respond.
And it is indicated that the General Law of Regulatory Improvement establishes a period of 45 days for the agency that promotes the preliminary project, in this case Cofepris, to respond to the request made by Conamer on August 4. Since this response was delivered on October 20 it was made at the wrong time, so the Conamer “It must completely discard the regulatory proposal procedure of the preliminary draft.”

Original source in Spanish