Cigarette Company Embarrassed

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31989, 16 May 1969, Page 1

Cigarette Company Embarrassed

Strong rumours in Christchurch which resulted in scores of persons needlessly organising collections of empty cigarette packets are embarrassing Rothmans, Ltd.

One rumour is that the collection of 10,000 Rothmans packets will result in the company sponsoring a blind girl to Britain to be trained with a seeing-eye dog. Another variant of the rumour is that a collection of 4000 packets will inspire the company to provide a wheelchair for a crippled person. The rumours began about two months ago but have in-

creased. The company has been receiving a large number of telephone inquiries, and has at least one caller a day in Christchurch carrying boxes stacked full of empty packets. '“lt is most embarrassin o . There is no truth at all in the rumour,” said the Christchurch manager (Mr J. Coleman) yesterday. “It is not correct that the company is sponsoring any charity through the collection of its cigarette packets. Collectors are going to a lot of trouble for nothing.”

Detectives of the Christchurch C. 1.8. collected 400 packets for the blind girl proposal before one checked with the company and found there was no basis in the rumour-

Several offices in the city have also been organising collections and 8000 packets were collected in a manufacturing company. “We did sponsor a trip for a blind person to go to Australia and be trained with a dog through the New Zealand Foundation for the Blind,” said the assistant general manager of Rothmans in New Zealand (Mr H. Whiting) in a telephone interview from Auckland.

“We contributed $14,000 to the foundation for this purpose last year- We made the donation anonymously because we spend so much through our sports foundation that there is just not enough in the kitty to meet all requirements for charit;-. “But our gesture leaked

out somehow, and in March the rumour about the packets and the blind girl, and other variations on the same theme were very strong in Auckland. “We were inundated with packets and issued disclaimers through the press and radio. The matter has died down in Auckland now, but has apparently spread to Christchurch.

“The company would be most appreciative if you could inform the public that the collecting of empty packets is a waste of time, and an embarrassment to us,” Mr Whiting said. “We cannot even give collectors a packet of cigarettes for their trouble, be. cause this would contravene the Trading Coupons Act.”