Legal tobacco sales plummet

ALGECIRAS (Agencies) Tobacco sales from legal outlets in Algeciras amounted to €5.9 million in 2009, compared to that for Cádiz (city), at €23 million, or Jerez, with €30. Local tobacconists complain that controls at the frontier are ineffective. For further comparisons, the amounts for Algeciras are taken from numbers of towns of more than 75,000 inhabitants, yet Soria and Teruel, with a populations of 40,000 and well inland, register sales of over €6.8 million. The latest report from the Government has plenty of comparisons among cities and towns all over Spain. Similar circumstances appear near the Principality of Andorra, where the price of a carton of cigarettes is almost half of that on the Spanish side of the border. Police operations during the feria in Málaga this summer revealed that 93% of the tobacco confiscated came from Gibraltar. A spokesperson for the organization that congregates tobacconists in Algeciras, points out that their sales have fallen by 27% year on year and, he says, it affects the whole of the Campo area.