Helping employees.

0 Comments | Philadelphia Inquirer, The, January, 2008 | by Maria Panaritis Inquirer Staff Writer

Smokers, it seems, are going down like ducks in a shooting gallery, with 2008 emerging as the Year Of the Cigarette Ban. Capping a week in which smokers were booted to the curb in city after city across the globe, the Wegmans supermarket chain announced yesterday that it would stop selling cigarettes for the first time since its inception in 1916.

The chain operates 71 stores, four of which are in the Philadelphia region. The decision, which takes effect Feb. 10, makes Wegmans Food Markets Inc. the highest-profile supermarket group known to have removed the beleaguered tobacco product from its shelves. Wegmans has stores in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Governing bodies across the United States and abroad rang in the new year this week by...