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Starting in the New Year, Winchester’s policies on the sale of tobacco and related products got much tougher. The most prominent change prohibits the sale of tobacco products at health care institutions, including pharmacies. Other changes include banning minors from purchasing nicotine delivery products such as e-cigarettes, which are chargeable cigarettes that allow users to blow water vapor instead of smoke. Fines and penalties for the sale of tobacco products to minors have also been increased.

Finally, the new regulations prohibit smoking bars, which are establishments such as hookah bars or cigar bars that are primarily engaged in the sale of tobacco for consumption. Currently, there are no smoking bars in Winchester. Board of Health Chairman David Heinold said the changes were meant to make some of the town’s smoking regulations clearer.

“We wanted to clarify some issues related to our smoking policies,” he said. “There was some vague language that we wanted to tighten.” He said some of the new regulations just made sense. “Given that the idea of a pharmacy is to promote health, we didn’t want them to be selling a product like tobacco that goes directly against that,” Heinold said. He said the only business in town that was affected by the change was CVS; the town’s other pharmacy, Winchester Drug, does not sell cigarettes. Heinold said local businesses were notified about potential changes to the town’s smoking regulations months ago, but that the town did not receive any responses during the public comment period.

Jennifer Murphy, the town’s public health director, said the changes were enacted because Winchester is part of the Mystic Valley Tobacco and Alcohol Program. The program is a seven-community consortium that promotes awareness about the dangers of alcohol and tobacco. Murphy said the town had to adopt the regulations as part of being involved with the program. The program provides member communities with compliance checks. For example, they check that businesses are displaying signage properly and they employ undercover teenagers to enter local business to make sure the stores are not selling to minors.

“One of the things the state asks us to do, as a collaborative, is to adopt the model regulations that the state puts out,” Murphy said. She added that many of the regulations would benefit Winchester and other communities. “Given that other communities around us were doing this, our Board of Health thought it was a great opportunity,” she said.