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42
TOBACCO OUTLET BUSINESS
JULY/AUGUST 2012
What’s
Lighting up
on the
FDA
I
t ’s no secret that steering a tobacco business got a lot
more complex when a few new gauges—emblazoned
with the initials “F.D.A.”—were mandated into the
dashboards of each and every company in the industry.
Their flashing lights are part of the new norm of doing
business and should be monitored almost daily for the least
traumatic navigation.
One top-chain retailer told
Tobacco Outlet Business
he
checks those proverbial gauges with the attitude of never
wanting to be too surprised. So he keeps abreast of what ’s
happening on a regular basis, even if it doesn’t change his
business plan in the short-term.
“With the FDA, you never know day-by-day what ’s going
to happen with this business now,” says Andy Whitaker,
vice president of operations for TRO of North Carolina
Inc. (Tobacco Road Outlets) in Lakeview, North Carolina.
“It changes every day, but you can’t look back, you have to
stay aware; you have to roll with it.”
Terry Schmitz, zone leader for Tobacco Outlet Plus in
LaCross, Wisconsin, has a similar outlook. Speaking about
the FDA and the inevitable continued change coming down
the road, he says, “We can’t always change what will come
our way, so we need to understand it, and make it work in
our class of business.”
At Klafter’s, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, the regulatory