Member Spotlight: New England Convenience Store & Energy Marketers Association

Welcome to the latest edition of Regulate Smarter’s “Member Spotlight,” a weekly segment where we go in-depth on the priorities and background of our members.

This week, meet the New England Convenience Store & Energy Marketers Association (NECSEMA). Created by a merger of two organizations in 2015, the goal of NECSEMA is serving as a unified and influential voice for the convenience store and energy marketing industries in New England. Through advocacy, networking opportunities, and broader promotion efforts, NECSEMA has pushed back on misguided regulatory overreach and fought for a business climate that allows its members to thrive.

As part of their mission to protect and promote the retail and energy marketer industry, and the tens of thousands of jobs its members create and maintain in New England, NECSEMA supports policies that promote smoke-free products like vapes and pouches. They have not been shy about standing up to state-based overreach that has exacerbated the illegal market, including punitive taxes targeting electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS). In 2019, NECSEMA described an attempt by Massachusetts to restrict vaping products as a boon to, “the criminals and gangs that already operated in the states illegal black market.”

In 2024, NECSEMA launched a grassroots campaign to oppose generational bans on tobacco and nicotine products in Massachusetts, warning that “generational bans threaten civil liberties in Massachusetts and, if unopposed, would inevitably lead to local prohibitions on a host of other products, including gambling, alcohol, cannabis, sugary drinks, fatty foods, caffeine and more.”

NECSEMA has been clear-eyed that banning products only fuels the illicit market, noting that when, “you vacate a market worth hundreds of millions of dollars and you've already got participants in that space, we had no doubt that they were going to fill that void."

This July, Peter Brennan, executive director of NECSEMA, warned that so-called “Nicotine Free Generation” laws only serve to, “eliminate adult rights, harm small businesses, strip away millions in tax dollars from Massachusetts, support criminals and push sales to other states and unregulated markets,” in a must-read column for Commonwealth Magazine.

Follow all the latest @necsema, necsema.net and https://citizensforadultchoice.com/