Walmart has decided to stop selling cigarettes at some locations in the U.S.
Walmart is not the first chain to stop selling cigarettes, but it is the largest retailer to do so, The Associated Press reported.
Walmart has more than 4,700 stores in the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal.
Target stopped selling cigarettes in 1996 and CVS Health stopped cigarette sales in 2014, the AP reported.
When CVS stopped selling tobacco products, earnings fell in the quarters after the change.
The Wall Street Journal was the first to break the news about Walmart’s decision.
The newspaper said stores in California, Florida, Arkansas and New Mexico will stop selling cigarettes in a move to redesign the stores, adding more self-checkout registers and other items.
“We are always looking at ways to meet our customers’ needs while still operating an efficient business,” a Walmart spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal. She did not say how many stores will stop tobacco sales.
The decision will be made on a store-by-store basis, the AP reported.
The decision, however, is not new. The debate over pulling tobacco products from its stores started before the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is just now being seen in retail locations.
Walmart also does not sell tobacco in New York and parts of Massachusetts where it is prohibited to sell tobacco where there is a retail pharmacy. It has also pulled tobacco products from a majority of its Sam’s Club locations.
This is not the first time that Walmart has pulled products or adjusted what it sells.
Walmart has adjusted how and where it sells firearms, raising the purchasing age to 21 in stores that do sell them, and discontinued ammunition that is used in semiautomatic weapons and handguns after a shooting in a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The company had announced that it would stop selling electronic cigarettes at Walmart and Sam’s Club locations in 2019, the AP reported.