Xavier Shi: My Livelyhood Is Threatened
4Excessive and rigid tobacco regulation, when applied indiscriminately by the MSSS police, may prove unfair to honest and hardworking c-store owners who are truly respectful of the law and do everything they can to fulfill their social obligations.
This is the case of Xavier Shi and his wife Shao Min Wu, photographed here during their participation in the QCSA Lobby day in the National Assembly on May 28, 2015. These deux partners in life as in business have been operating a tobacco kiosk at the Boulevard Mall, located on the corner of Jean-Talon Est and Pie IX, in Montreal, for more than 15 years.
Xavier arrived in Quebec twenty years ago already equipped with a basic knowledge of the French language, which he now masters very well.
To establish himself in La Belle Province, he bought a modest tobacco kiosk located in a commercial centre in Montreal, as there are several.
Business was OK until 2005, when the Quebec Tobacco Act was modified. Its revised version now stated that a tobacco retail outlet must be “closed” and “accessible through a door” only.
“A tobacco retail outlet is a fixed place permanently delimited by continuous floor-to-ceiling partitions or walls that is accessible only through an opening equipped with a door and in which tobacco is sold retail by the operator of the place;” – article 14.1 of the Tobacco Control Act, adopted in 2005.
Located in the heart of a commercial mall surrounded by “continuous walls or walls extending from the floor to the ceiling” and through which “the clientele can only access by an opening equipped with a door”, one could allege that Xavier’s kiosk is fully compliant in a way.
In addition, the nearby Metro Plus supermarket is selling tobacco as well without a door and it has never had any problem with authorities. Also, several shopping malls in Quebec have tobacco kiosks that have never been a problem for anyone, until now presumably.
But what had to happen happened: a zealous MSSS inspector came in one fine morning and gave him a warning. Then, two years later, the same inspector decided to impose a $ 2,500 fine for selling tobacco in a non-compliant place, an offense that Xavier has been challenging since.
He now finds himself in a legal No Man’s Land in the sense that he can continue to sell tobacco until his case is heard in court.
On behalf of Xavier, the QCSA put pressure on the government to get some real answers and as a result, the MSSS said that it does not consider the shopping mall as a unit of point-of-sale. As for the nearby Metro Plus, taken “in its entirety”, it is considered a tobacco retail outlet for the purposes of the Act since it holds a retail permit and a certificate of registration issued by Revenu Québec.
As a result, the MSSS concludes that the situation of these tobacco retail kiosks contravenes the Act and that they are obliged to comply with the same rules as the others and the findings of infraction issued will be maintained.
Except that the grocery store in question, considered as a point of sale, has no more door than the sales kiosk and yet it is tolerated. It will be up to a judge to decide the issue that could determine the future of tobacco sales in all tobacco kiosks in Quebec’s shopping centers. Meanwhile, Xavier and Shao have to live the uncertainty of not knowing what the future will hold, a very unfair situation for this honest and hardworking retailer couple whose only dream is to participate as best they can to the Quebec society!
