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ASH Daily news for 02 August 2011

HEADLINES

  • Imperial gives up on overturning vending machine ban

    The Court of Appeal last month threw out a legal challenge against the move by Imperial during which it claimed outlawing the machines would encourage the trade in illicit cigarettes.

    In a statement to the London Stock Exchange, Imperial said Sinclair Collis was now focused on meeting its responsibilities under the legislation.

    Imperial owns around 20,000 vending machines in the UK, mainly in bars, clubs and restaurants, through its Wolverhampton-based subsidiary Sinclair Collis.

    Source: Bristol 24/7 - 01 August 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/q8x7X2

  • Two Northampton Conservative MPs given gifts by cigarette firm

    Two MPs for Northampton have been given free tickets to some of Britain’s poshest social events, by one of the world’s largest tobacco firms.

    Both the Conservative MP for Northampton North, Michael Ellis, and his colleague for Northampton South, Brian Binley, were given tickets worth £1,132 to this year’s Chelsea Flower Show by Japan Tobacco International – which sells brands such as Benson & Hedges and Camel cigarettes.

    Mr Binley also received two tickets worth £1,132 to the Glyndebourne opera festival from the firm.

    Before he was elected in May last year, Mr Ellis highlighted the concerns of newsagents in Northampton about Government plans to force them to take cigarettes off general display in their shops. Mr Binley has also been an outspoken opponent of the smoking ban.

    But Mr Ellis said it was wrong to assume MPs would have their views on smoking swayed by gifts from cigarette firms. The barrister, who has said he ‘loathes smoking’, said: “I disapprove of smoking and I always have done."

    Japan Tobacco International invited 13 MPs to the Chelsea Flower Show. It is believed the cost of providing each MP with a pair of tickets was about £100, but the cost of lunch and tea pushed the price up to £1,132 per MP.

    Source: Northampton Chronicle and Echo - 02 August 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/qQddCY

  • Winchester: Raiders caught on camera stealing £4,000 of cigarettes

    [This article features a video]

    This is the moment that thieves grabbed cigarettes valued at £4,000 from a Hampshire supermarket.

    The three-man gang smashed their way through a large window into the Waitrose supermarket in Winchester in the early hours.

    They took just three minutes to break into the locked cigarette cabinet with bolt cutters and then empty it of hundreds of packets, carrying their haul away in a large waste bag.

    Detectives are appealing for information.

    Police recently arrested a man in connection with a recent raid on the Tesco store in Broad Street, Alresford.

    Source: This is Hampshire - 02 August 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/rmWqDV

  • No smoke without ire: Shisha bar crackdown in Manchester

    Shisha bars face a new crackdown over fears they are taking over Manchester’s famed Curry Mile.

    More than 30 of the bars – which provide Middle Eastern hookah pipes for people to smoke tobacco – have opened in a quarter-mile stretch of Wilmslow Road, in Rusholme, over the past three years.

    Police and council officers also fear some may be flouting the smoking ban or using illicit tobacco.

    Now they are planning a string of raids and a new voluntary code of conduct.

    Detectives have already swooped on one shisha bar and seized more than £23,000 of counterfeit tobacco. More are planned in coming months.

    Source: Manchester Evening News - 01 August 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/planJj

  • BAT withdraws from Bulgaria cigarette maker sale

    British American Tobacco has decided not to bid for Bulgarian cigarette maker Bulgartabak , citing market and strategic reasons, the privatisation agency said on Monday.

    BAT's withdrawal leaves only Austria-registered BT Invest, controlled by Russia's state bank VTB, eyeing a majority stake in the company, which has two cigarette mills and a tobacco processing plant.

    'BAT's withdrawal does not make the tender not valid. It can continue with one bidder, and the privatisation agency decision will depend of the quality of the bid,' an agency spokeswoman said.

    'As we have said, Bulgartabak will not be sold at any cost,' she said.

    This is the fourth attempt by Bulgaria to put the company in private hands and is part of the centre-right government's efforts to bolster public revenue in the wake of a recession and ensure a market for Bulgarian tobacco.
     

    Source: LSE - 01 August 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/pu66tM

  • Miley Cyrus fans lash out after singer snapped smoking

    Miley Cyrus fans were up in arms after photos emerged of the former Disney star smoking a cigarette on Monday.

    The Nashville native has increasingly shed her family-friendly image, releasing a risqué new album in June 2010 and being video-taped smoking salvia out of a bong in late November.

    Though the Can't Be Tamed singer has yet to comment on the smoking photos, she had previously voiced her commitment to steer clear of the vice.

    "I would never smoke," Cyrus wrote in her 2009 autobiography Miles to Go.

    "I always say that for me, smoking would be like smashing my guitar and expecting it to play. I'd never do that to my voice, not to mention the rest of my body," she added.

    Source: Herald Sun - 02 August 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/oJLWqT