Supermarkets and grocery stores in New York should follow the lead of an upstate chain and ban the sale of cigarettes, advocates and the state Health Department say.

The Albany Times-Union reported April 3 that a group of healthcare advocates and the health department each paid to publish full-page newspaper ads calling on food stores to cease sales of cigarettes. The ads appeared in newspapers statewide.

"Which area supermarket will be the first to kick butts?" the health groups' ad asked, urging others to emulate Wegmans, a Rochester-based supermarket chain that ended cigarettes sales in February. DiCicco Family Markets of Yonkers and Budwey's of Buffalo also have stopped selling cigarettes.

The Health Department ads show cigarettes among groceries like cheese, broccoli and eggs with the caption, "Which item doesn't belong?"

Price Chopper, a supermarket chain based in Rotterdam, N.Y., has not banned cigarette sales but agreed after meeting with antismoking activists to make tobacco displays less visible. "We don't advocate the use of tobacco, but we do recognize the right to smoke, or the right to quit, belongs to the individual," spokesperson Mona Golub said.

"I think we would all agree cigarettes are bad for people," said Gary Dake, president of convenience-store chain Stewart's Shops. "But we are certainly not in a position of making lifestyle and health choices for our customers ... Is the next one that we shouldn't allow gambling through the Lottery, or beer sales? There's a line there somewhere that we're very uncomfortable trying to cross."

The New York Association of Convenience Stores wrote to state lawmakers to complain about the Health Department spending $109,000 on the ads. "The state Department of Health is spending thousands of tax dollars asking business to stop selling a legal product they have been licensed by the state tax department to sell," said Jim Calvin, president of the association. "Would the state of New York please make up its mind?"