Background Tobacco companies have opposed the removal of tobacco retail displays, arguing this would compromise retailers' safety, increase retail crime, reduce retailers' income, impose additional costs and be inconvenient. These arguments have successfully delayed policy development in several jurisdictions.

Methods In-depth interviews conducted with New Zealand retailers who had voluntarily removed tobacco from open display in their stores.

Results Retailers who had removed tobacco displays did so primarily to reduce their security risk and found their stores had become less vulnerable to retail crime. They did not find removing displays costly or inconvenient nor had this decision significantly reduced their revenue.

Conclusions Removing in-store tobacco displays may increase rather than decrease store safety. Our findings reveal that retailers' experiences differed in many ways from tobacco companies' predictions and suggest that industry arguments against display removal lack objective support and are self-serving.