The major retailer Walmart will stop selling cigarettes in some of its 5,000 stores nationwide.
The company has not disclosed exactly how many stores will pull cigarettes from shelves, but sources familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal some of the locations would include certain stores in California, Arkansas, Florida, and New Mexico.
“We are always looking at ways to meet our customers’ needs while still operating an efficient business,” a Walmart spokesperson told the Journal.
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The retail giant’s move to pull the products from the shelves and replace them with self-checkout kiosks, grab-and-go food, and candy is the latest in a long-running fight against selling tobacco in places with pharmacies.
Target eliminated tobacco sales in 1996, while CVS moved in 2014 to pull the products. At the time, CVS said no longer selling tobacco would cost the company big, about $2 billion, and that selling it was antithetical to its mission to be a healthcare source.
CVS’s decision to pull tobacco and rebrand itself as CVS Health came just a few months after two dozen state attorneys general put pressure on pharmacy retailers Rite Aid, Walgreen, Kroger, Safeway, and Walmart to stop selling cigarettes.
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“There is a contradiction in having these dangerous and devastating tobacco products on the shelves of a retail chain that services health care needs,” the state attorneys general said.
