Can Skip The Dishes Deliver Cigarettes?

Skip The Dishes is an online food delivery service in Canada. It’s an easy way for people to get food, alcohol, and convenience store items delivered right to their door by a friendly courier. Unfortunately, Skip The Dishes does not allow the delivery of tobacco products like cigarettes at this time. 

Services like Skip The Dishes have risen in popularity in recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many similar services offer the option to deliver cigarettes, but at this time it is not part of the Skip The Dishes model. To learn more about this and what other services do deliver tobacco products, keep reading. 

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Will I deliver cigarettes as a Skip The Dishes courier?

Skip The Dishes couriers do not deliver cigarettes as this is currently not part of the list of products and services offered. 

What kinds of things do Skip The Dishes couriers deliver?

Skip The Dishes couriers primarily deliver food from the network of restaurants that Skip The Dishes is partnered with in your area. They pick up mostly takeout orders at local, chain, and fast-food restaurants including restaurants that do not offer delivery. 

Some orders also could include convenience store items or alcohol

What delivery services will deliver cigarettes?

When you are working as a courier or driver for any of the major food delivery services, it’s important to stay informed on what you will be asked to deliver while you are working. With some companies, you will only be asked to deliver takeout, but with others, you may be asked to pick up alcohol, convenience store items, or tobacco products. 

Each company has its own regulations and processes around what its drivers can deliver, especially with things like cigarettes.  These are important things to know before you start working with a delivery service to be sure that you are capable of and comfortable with picking up whatever you may get assigned. 

Here is a brief rundown of the major food delivery services and what their policies are around delivering cigarettes and other tobacco products. The only one of these services that presently delivers cigarettes is DoorDash, but this could change in the future.

Skip The Dishes

Skip The Dishes is a Canadian food delivery service that is primarily focused on delivering food from local restaurants. As a courier with Skip The Dishes, you may be asked to pick up alcohol and items from local convenience stores including foods, necessities, and even some medications. 

Skip The Dishes couriers are not able to deliver any tobacco products like cigarettes as that is not something that is currently a part of their platform. This service may be added in the future if customers express interest, but at this time it is not an option for this Canada-based company. 

DoorDash

DoorDash is actually one of the few online delivery services that will deliver tobacco products to their customers. There are some important rules to follow and regulations for fulfilling orders with tobacco products, so make sure you’re aware of these before you accept an order. 

Policies for picking up tobacco items like cigarettes with DoorDash:

• As a dasher, you must be 21 years or older to pick up any tobacco product for an order. 
• You must check the customer’s valid identification to confirm their birth date shows they are 21 or older upon delivery.
  • Acceptable forms of identification for a tobacco purchase with DoorDash:
    • Valid driver’s license or state identification card
    • Valid passport
    • Armed Forces’ Identification card
• Confirm that the ID is not expired or fake and ensure that the picture looks like the person who is taking the delivery. 
• Never deliver cigarettes or other tobacco products to any of the following locations:
  • Any public or private K-12 schools
  • College campuses
  • Hospitals or health care facilities
  • PO Boxes
  • Prisons
  • Sporting event venues
  • Retail stores that sell tobacco products
  • Storage facilities
• A dasher can refuse to make a delivery of a tobacco product at any time if they don’t feel comfortable. 

UberEats

UberEats, a division of the popular ride-sharing app, now delivers your favorite takeout right to your doorstep. 

While UberEats drivers can pick up some other convenience items for you, they have an extensive list of items that its drivers are prohibited from delivering to customers. All cigarettes and other tobacco products are part of the restricted list. 

If an UberEats driver discovers that an item on the prohibited products list is part of their delivery, they are encouraged to cancel the trip at any time.

Postmates

Postmates is another food delivery service that is popular in urban areas. As of July 2020, Postmates is now owned by UberEats. Since this acquisition, Postmates now follows the same policies and guidelines as UberEats. This means that the delivery of any tobacco products like cigarettes is prohibited. 

Instacart

Instacart is a popular service for grocery and convenience store order delivery. They have risen in popularity since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic because many people utilized their contactless delivery to avoid large public places like grocery stores.

Currently, Instacart does not allow the delivery of tobacco products. This could change in the future if demand increases because they have been constantly evolving in response to customer feedback. 

Instacart recently added alcohol to the list of approved items that their shoppers can deliver, so it’s not out of the question that they may add tobacco products in the future as well.

Why don’t more delivery services deliver cigarettes?

The main reason why many delivery services do not offer cigarettes or tobacco products is because they are age-restricted items. Asking a courier from a delivery service to validate identification to prove that a customer is of age is a bit outside the purview of these services. 

There are many factors to validating that someone is old enough to purchase an age-restricted item like cigarettes. Stores that sell these types of items offer extensive training to their employees to help them learn how to validate proper identification. 

This type of training on validating identification would be difficult if not impossible for a delivery service provider like Skip The Dishes because couriers sign up of their own accord and no training is offered. 

To safely deliver cigarettes or other tobacco products, drivers would have to be aware of the age restriction laws, familiar with what local driver’s licenses and other forms of identification look like, trained on how to spot a fake ID, and more. 

Adding cigarette delivery would add a lot of complexity to this service, and many companies like Skip The Dishes simply just aren’t willing to take the risk. 

Conclusion

Skip The Dishes does not deliver any cigarettes or other tobacco products including cigars, vapes/e-cigarettes, or loose tobacco. They have added alcohol delivery to their repertoire, so it is likely that tobacco products could follow suit in the future.

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The only delivery service that currently delivers any tobacco products is DoorDash. They provide their dashers with information on how to validate identification properly to ensure that the recipient is of age. Dashers can refuse to complete orders with tobacco products if they are not comfortable with delivering them or if they are not of age themselves.