Walmart to end cigarette sales in some stores, including Florida

Walmart will no longer sell cigarettes in some of its stores even though tobacco sales can be a significant revenue generator.

Wall Street Journal was the first to report the development Monday. It noted some stores in California, Florida, Arkansas, and New Mexico were on the list, citing anonymous sources and store visits.

Walmart is not the first national retail chain to cut off cigarette sales even on a trial basis, but it is the largest.

Target ended cigarette sales in 1996 and the drugstore chain CVS Health did the same in 2014.

CVS Health sales in areas outside the pharmacy fell for a few quarters after it pulled tobacco products, and the company had predicted that missing tobacco products would hurt annual earnings by 7 to 8 cents per share.

Overall revenue has grown every year at CVS, however, after a number of acquisitions and changes to its stores bolstered the company’s health care offerings. CVS Health bought the health insurer Aetna in 2017.

Decisions about removing cigarettes at Walmart will be made on a store-by-store basis according to the business and particular market, the company said Monday.

“We are always looking at ways to meet our customers’ needs while still operating an efficient business,” Walmart said in a prepared statement.

Health officials say that cigarette smoking causes about one of every five deaths in the U.S. each year.

Walmart Inc., based in Bentonville, Arkansas, announced in 2019 that it was getting out of the vaping business and would stop selling electronic cigarettes at its stores and also at Sam’s Clubs. It said at the time the decision was based on “growing federal, state and local regulatory complexity.”

Fewer people smoke now than they did 10 years ago.

But that doesn’t mean the U.S. doesn’t have a problem.

“One in five people die from cigarette smoke, not to mention the other sequela which would be lung cancer, and lung-related diseases like COPD,” said Virginia Londahl Ramsey, an assistant professor at Florida Gulf Coast University’s School of Nursing.

Londahl Ramsey is all for Walmart’s move to get rid of cigarettes in some of its stores.

“I think that by Walmart, taking a stand as it is so prevalent, it’s in everybody’s neighborhood, for them to do that, it’s going to make it a lot easier for on other stores to follow suit,” Londahl Ramsey said. “I believe that Walmart has the economic stability to take a hit.”

FGCU economist Victor Claar said, “it comes down to weighing costs against benefits.”

“If people began to perceive Walmart as being, even more, consumer conscious and even more health-conscious where the public is concerned, then that may pay off for them over the longer term,” Claar said. “Walmart is considering like lots of other stores expanding the healthcare options that they have within their brick and mortar stores. So if they begin to follow CVS and offer things like a Minute Clinic inside the store, then in many states that creates lots of problems when you’re selling cigarettes.”