Pharmacies and retailers based on college campuses in Boston would be prohibited from selling cigarettes under new regulations expected to be approved this week, the Boston Globe reported Sept. 4.

If approved, the rules would go into effect next year. Retailers that violate the ban would face fines of up to $2,000.

Boston also is considering banning smoking in outdoor areas of bars and restaurants and shutting down all cigar bars in the city.

Barbara Ferrer, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission, said that selling tobacco is incompatible with the mission of the city's 74 pharmacies. "Why, in a place where people go to get healthy and get information about staying healthy, would you want to sell something that has absolutely no redeeming value and ends up killing a lot of people?" she asked.

Some pharmacy chains spoke out against the proposed sales ban. "Customers who purchase tobacco products in our stores also would lose the benefit of having pharmacists available to counsel them on how to quit smoking and lose the benefit of seeing smoking-cessation products," said Walgreens spokesperson Carol Hively.

Critics said that the new laws would only change the buying habits of smokers, not prevent them from smoking. "I just don't see the government's role in regulating the consistency of the mission of a store," said Michael Siegel, a tobacco-control expert at the Boston University School of Public Health. "Just to extend this, should the public-health mission also ban the sale of candy bars in pharmacies? If we're going to get rid of cigarettes, why don't we also get rid of soda? We know soda causes obesity."