7 necsema.net New England Convenience Store & Energy Marketers Association EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S Letter “Some years you win, some years you build character” – Steve Jobs 2024 was a character-building year for NECSEMA. Sure, we had plenty of wins, but the year began with a legal decision our Association and industry has been forced to adapt to ever since. First, let’s celebrate the wins. NECSEMA’s legislative efforts were on full display in State Houses across New England. In Connecticut, we defeated the so-called Green Monster climate bill; we prevented the adoption of California’s Advanced Clean Cars II and Advanced Clean Trucks (EV Mandate) regulations; and we quashed a bill to restrict energy drink sales to people 16 years of age or older. In Maine, we killed a ban on flavored tobacco products and helped pass legislation guaranteeing that legislators, regulators, will have the final say over the adoption of vehicle emissions rules, like EV mandates. In Massachusetts, the legislature enacted legislation to create an online lottery but we included retailer protections and created a Stakeholder Lottery Modernization Committee, which I chair, to guide the process. We defeated dozens of bills that would have degraded our members’ businesses. In New Hampshire, we killed legislation that would have prevented retailers from scanning driver licenses, prohibited retailers from providing self-serve disposable plastic food ware accessory dispensers, mandated installation of bottle redemption machines in retail and convenience stores. In Rhode Island, we prevented the government from pillaging the Underground Storage Tank (UST) and Oil Spill Prevention, Administration and Response (OSPAR) Fund; we defeated environmental justice legislation that would have prevented NECSEMA members from renewing key permits; we killed legislation that would have required beverage retailers to install on-premise bottle redemption centers. In Vermont, our lobbying influenced the Governor’s decision to veto a flavored tobacco ban. In his veto message, Governor Phil Scott wrote “I, too, feel we have an obligation to protect our children, but it must be balanced in such a way that we honor the rights and freedoms of adults to make decisions about their individual lives.” Altogether, it was an excellent year of legislative advocacy by NECSEMA and its brilliant team of contract lobbyists. If that was it for 2024, it would be a year of winning. Unfortunately, there was character building… On March 8, 2024, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court today upheld a law in the town of Brookline that banned the sale of tobacco products to anyone born on or after January 1, 2000. This so-called “Nicotine-Free Generation” (NFG) initiative was promoted as a public health measure to prevent nicotine addiction among young people (despite targeting adults) and was immediately taken up by anti-nicotine zealots who brought their arguments to municipal boards of health and argued that the SJC’s decision meant that every Massachusetts municipality should enact a similar bylaw, not that it could, by law. NECSEMA suddenly found itself at the forefront of the fight against this proscription of adults’ rights. While the advocates seem to live in a counterfactual world where humans didn’t start using tobacco as a mild stimulant in the Pleistocene era some 12,300 years ago, we understand the real-world impact of this policy. Put simply, it separates adults into two cohorts: one that has the right to purchase tobacco products legally, another that never will. For retailers with tobacco licenses the impact is dire. Clerks are suddenly tasked Pete Brennan Continued on page 16
