MINNEAPOLIS – Convenience store owners are vigorously protesting the proposed ordinance to ban menthol cigarettes from Minneapolis store shelves, City Pages reports. Earlier this summer, the city council proposed only allowing the sale of menthol tobacco products in adult smoke shops. City Councilmembers Cam Gordon and Lisa Bender said their bill would help keep menthol cigarettes out of reach of minors.

Convenience store owners pointed out that banning menthol cigarettes from their shelves would mean a loss of $226,000 per store, according to the Coalition of Neighborhood Retailers. “Leaders should be focused on fixing the increase in violent crime, establishing real community-based policing, and coming up with innovations to improve our declining neighborhoods instead of banning legal products,” said Ahmad Al-Hawwari, a member of the United Chamber of Commerce that represents 100 Arab-American owned c-stores in the city. “Taking cigarette sales away from licensed, law-abiding retailers is giving our sales away to an underground criminal market.”

Clay and Mia Lambert, owners of Metro Petro, said such a ban would mean they would likely not be able to expand their business. “Is this the future of Minneapolis?” Clay said. “No rational business owner would continue to invest.”

The clamor from convenience store owners delayed the measure for now, with the city’s health committee not voting on it last week. The health committee will take the matter up this week.