24 / 50
Briant. NATO responded to the changing strategic
moves of a never-ending battle.
“[The anti-tobacco groups] had previously fo-
cused on lobbying state legislators and Congress to
pass tax increases and smoking bans, but they found
it was increasingly difficult to do that because the
industry itself was becoming more organized and
responding to unfair taxes and unreasonable legisla-
tions,” he says. “So they shifted [their] strategy, and
the focus now is at the local level where they can
go city to city or county to county and try to pass
these ordinances, and maybe then, when they have
enough of them passed, bring that issue to the state
level and the state legislature.”
So NATO was quick to recognize that its primary
focus needed to be on local issues. “We’re the only na-
tional retail trade association that focuses on local and
state issues,” Briant relays, adding that its other focus
is “certainly on FDA issues, because retailers need to
know what’s happening and how to comply.” But local
is clearly the key.
In 2015, there were 450 local tobacco ordinances
proposed across the country, according to NATO.
retailers fight local legislation against tobacco, or
what it calls the NATO Local Project. And it even
dropped running its NATO trade show and confer-
ence to be able to fully commit moving forward.
“We positioned ourselves to be 100 percent legis-
lative,” says Frank Armstrong, president of NATO
and owner of Blue Ridge Tobacco, a chain of eight
tobacco outlets in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
In fact, he considers his greatest accomplishment as
president this year to be “making a smooth transi-
tion from having a trade show to strategically po-
sitioning ourselves to taking on all local initiatives
that are out there. Our ability and our strength to
react to local concerns is the best in the country, and
we’re going to continue that and improve upon it.”
Simply put, NATO ended its “show era” to em-
bark on its “unifying era”—bringing forces in the in-
dustry together to fight and make progress primarily
at the local level.
LOCAL SHI FT BEGINS
In 2012, NATO started its Local Project because
“we saw a shift in the anti-tobacco strategy,” explains
“The work
Tomdoes…
there’s
nobody
else in the
business
like him.
He is a
workhorse
and takes
a lot of
pride in
his role,”
—MARY SZARMACH,
SMOKER FRIENDLY
INTERNATIONAL
NATO Board Member Mary Szarmach
in a Smoker Friendly cigar lounge.
26
TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2016