While only those who have received a license under the state monopoly on tobacco product that came into effect in July can sell these items, the law doesn’t make any stipulations about where these retail outlets, so-called “trafiks,” may operate. Thus, many of them opened in hypermarkets and shopping malls. These facilities also sport other services and features that attract young people, whereas the declared primary goal of the law was to protect minors.

There is also a good chance the revisions will pass since the government is prone to favoring the interests of small, domestic operators over multinationals, the paper said.