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The General Store halts sale of tobacco products

If you notice that you’re out of cigarettes when it’s time for your on-campus smoke break, you won’t be able to run to The General Store to pick up a pack of smokes.

The General Store, located inside the University Book Store, stopped carrying tobacco products in mid-November due to an order from Barnes and Noble, the book company that owns the store, according to book store manager Rodney Merriwether.

“We got the instructions from our corporate offices, all stores nationwide,” Merriwether said.

He also said the decision was made for several reasons. “It was a combination of sales and the stigma of students and cigarettes,” Merriwether said.

Merriwether also said the students have adjusted well to the change. “There has been no real student reaction,” Merriwether said. “Some students may come in looking for cigarettes and then say, ‘Hey, no cigarettes,’ but that’s about it.”

University Store cashier Jaci Tron, a sophomore nursing major, agreed that students haven’t been disgruntled by the absence of tobacco in the store.

She said that during her shifts at The General Store, students hadn’t been saying anything.

Graduate student Kevin Gough said he bought cigarettes at The General Store before, but the geology and archeology major said he didn’t know the store had quit handling tobacco.

“I bought cigarettes at The UC once, about two years ago,” Gough said. “They were extremely expensive. I stopped buying them there because they were, like, $4.”

Gough did admit that even though the cigarette prices were too steep for him, the convenience was a good thing.

Whether it’s convenient or not, the standard has been set. And Barnes and Noble’s vice president of Merchandising, Joel Friedman, said the decision was Barnes and Noble’s and not The University of Memphis’.

“Our decision was isolated to ourselves,” Friedman said. “We had no knowledge of any prior university plans.”

In fact, Friedman said, the choice to cut off carrying tobacco products was strictly financial.

“In some schools we decided to stop because we couldn’t make any money,” Friedman said.

Though the final decision was made by the book company, Friedman said there are occasions where schools have such strong feelings on the matter that Barnes and Noble may choose to yield on such a decision.

Since there was no outcry from The University of Memphis’ student body, faculty or staff, The U of M was not one such case.


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