Target Pulls Smokes From Store Shelves

Target Stores is getting out of the cigarette business and plans to have all packs off the shelves of its 714 stores by the end of September, the company said Wednesday.

The discount chain said the move was a business decision, based on economics, not ethics.

Requirements in many cities that cigarettes be sold from areas off-limits to minors, coupled with heavy shoplifting, squeezed profit margins on cigarettes so hard that they become unprofitable for Target, spokeswoman Carolyn Brookter said.

“It just didn’t balance. It was purely a business decision,” she said.

Cigarette sales generated less than one-half of 1 percent of Target’s 1995 revenues of $15.8 billion, or about $79 million, Brookter said.

Target stopped reordering cigarettes about three weeks ago.