New York: The world’s largest retailer Walmart Inc will stop sale of tobacco products in some of its stores in the United States. The retail giant on Monday said that it will stop these sales in more than 5,000 stores.
The company did not disclose how many stores would be affected by the move. The markets in which cigarettes are being removed from the stores include California, Florida and New Mexico, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news.
Walmart has rolled out a design with more self-checkout registers and other items such as grab-and-go food or candy near the front of the stores in place of Marlboro, Newport and other tobacco products, the Journal reported.
CVS in 2014 became the first U.S. drugstore chain to take cigarettes off the shelves, while Walmart halted sales of e-cigarettes and electronic nicotine delivery products at its U.S stores a few years later due to growing regulatory complexity and uncertainty.
Several Democratic senators have urged Walmart and other retailers to stop selling all tobacco products.