Haringey Council Cabinet *agrees* to repeat Finsbury Park cigarette sales in a ‘stall’, ‘small space’ or ‘booth’

AT this evening's Haringey Council Cabinet meeting, the Cabinet agreed the following:

(see Agenda Reports Pack, here, page 182: extract below)

Recommendation 13

The Committee notes that retailers selling tobacco are obliged to comply with various legislative measures and new national regulations that restrict the display of cigarettes and point of sale advertising to tobacco. With this in mind, and in addition to the licensing process for Finsbury Park, it is recommended that (a) it becomes a condition of hiring the park that any tobacco stalls should be as plain a possible (e.g. no bright colours or lights) to help prevent the promotion of smoking; and that (b) any evidence arising from this year’s events in relation to tobacco products be reviewed by the Licensing Team Leader in advance of future events.

My emphasis

Draft response   (Agreed / Not agreed / Partially agreed)

Agreed

Will be made a condition of hire of the park for 2016.

Evidence will be reviewed.

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One of the stated Key Priorities of Haringey is the promotion of public health, including increasing life expectancy … and explicitly, reducing smoking.

The Council has spent money—rightly, in my view—on trying to help the nicotine-addicted to give up their risky habit. Help desks have been operated in libraries, job- and shopping-centres.

The Finsbury Park Events Scrutiny Review heard evidence from both Action on Smoking & Health (ASH) and from the Local Authority's own Director of Public Health (evidence well-recorded but disregarded).

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Despite this, the Cabinet is determined that large-scale cigarette sales will be held again.

2016 will be the third year-running for Council-sanctioned tobacco sales during Wireless, in Finsbury Park. At the meeting, a council officer claimed that next summer the sales would be in a 'booth'. Here are some photos taken of last summer's tobacco 'stall' during the week-long Wireless build-up:

2015: The roof of the stall appears to have been inspired by the Sydney Opera House. The 'stall' was set up on the east side of Finsbury Park, by Seven Sisters Road, on ground that David Lammy MP would later compare with 'the Serengeti' due to its threadbare condition

Ample seating encourages the overwhelmingly young audience to linger. The Municipal-approved cigarette sales facility was set-up alongside the two-storey pub (right) Lord Somersbys Manor (Carlsberg).

Attracting, enticing, curious and colourful. And the Local Authority would emphasise—and correctly say—fully compliant with the rules on display

Looks more of a pavilion than a booth to me; someone suggested the Council had endorsed a Temple to tobacco.

This evening, I held up one of the photo enlargements as an example of the tobacco 'stall'.

Unfortunately, due to illness, the Cabinet Member for Parks was not present, but the Cabinet Members who were present affected little or no interest in the photographs, except possibly the Council Leader. The Leader recognised that this matter was a concern of mine; I regret that the appearance of municipal-endorsement for cigarette sales is not a concern of the Cabinet.

As a Member of the Council, I asked if the tobacco sales facility might be re-negotiated in future, but there was no substantive answer.

CDC
Haringey Councillor
Liberal Democrat Party