Dairy owners say the Government's smokefree plan is the final nail in the coffin for corner stores, which are already on the decline.
When it's actioned the number of retailers allowed to sell tobacco will reduce from 8000 to 500 and dairy owners won't be compensated for their loss of income.
New Zealand is proposing some of the toughest anti-smoking laws in the world - the new law will make it illegal for anyone now 14 or younger to ever buy a cigarette, even as they get older.
When enacted the law will see a sharp drop in the number of licensed retailers allowed to sell tobacco and cigarettes.
And dairy owners are worried about what that will mean for them.
"That would destroy nearly 95 percent of businesses and the remote and the rural area would be hugely hit with this one," Dairy and Business Owners Group chair Sunny Kaushal says.
Kaushal is calling for dairies to be compensated for the loss of income. He says businesses are facing dairygeddon, if they're banned from selling cigarettes.
He says once dairies are shuttered, gangs will fill the gap with blackmarket cigarettes.
"They would be setting up ciggie houses along with tinnie houses."
In the year to June Customs reported 3,721 interceptions of tobacco. They seized almost 11 million cigarettes and 2500 kilograms of loose tobacco.
Kaushal says the Government has missed an opportunity to include dairy owners as part of the smokefree plan.
"We know those smokers more than anyone else, so we can be influencers and switch them to vaping or whatever the other ways are," he says.
He feels dairies have become collateral damage in the Government's effort to phase out smoking.
