Lung Health News, Spring / Summer 2008
Donna Johnson* walked into the convenience store and nervously put her money down for a pack of cigarettes.The 15-year-old can’t legally buy tobacco. Instead, she is part of a statewide program coordinated by the American Lung Association of California that checks if retailers are obeying laws forbidding the sale of tobacco to minors.
“It was embarrassing because I didn’t want anyone in the store thinking I smoke,”says Johnson, who is an undercover tobacco buyer in the Fresno area for the STAKE Act program.“But it’s important because when you’re young, you don’t think about getting addicted. So it’s best to make it hard for kids to get cigarettes.” The STAKE Act or Stop Tobacco Access to Kids Enforcement Act was passed in 1994 to comply with a federal law requiring each state to reduce tobacco sales to minors. It authorized a statewide enforcement program, which includes compliance checks, a toll-free number to report merchants who sell tobacco to minors, and penalties ranging from $200 to $6,000.
In the last nine years, more than 17,000 compliance checks have been conducted in California through the STAKE Act program, according to Jim Blagg, the association’s STAKE Act project director. The American Lung Association of California is funded through Proposition 99 tobacco tax dollars to operate the program statewide, recruiting teens between the ages of 14 and 16 to become undercover tobacco purchasers. The teens work with investigators from the Food and Drug Branch of the California Department of Public Health to conduct the compliance checks.
An investigator follows each teen into the store to ensure everything goes smoothly and check for compliance with other tobacco laws such as those banning self-service tobacco displays and requiring retailers to post the toll-free number for reporting sales to minors.
Illegal sales of tobacco to minors is at 10.2 percent statewide, the lowest level since California first started monitoring these sales in 1995 – when it was at 37 percent.While that’s strong progress, tobacco sales to minors is still a major problem in many communities throughout the state. “The way to make local law enforcement respond to illegal tobacco sales to kids is to have strong local ordinances that require store owners to get a tobacco license,”says Steven Gallegos, smoke-free advocacy and program manager at the American Lung Association of California’s Los Angeles office who has helped secure a number of tobacco retailer licensing laws.
Communities Adopt Strong Tobacco Retailer Laws
The American Lung Association of California is working with coalitions across the state to pass strong local ordinances requiring retailers to obtain licenses to sell tobacco. Effective ordinances set fees high enough to fund enforcement activities, including undercover compliance checks, and have provisions for suspending or revoking tobacco licenses, according to the association’s Center for Tobacco Policy and Organizing.
“Enforcement is really what holds the retailer accountable,”says Debra Kelley, senior director of health initiatives and government relations at the association’s San Diego office.“Tobacco sales are lucrative, so knowing they could lose their license if they get caught selling to minors is a big deterrent for retailers.” According to the National Association of Convenience Stores, tobacco sales generate nearly $400,000 a year for the average convenience store.
Enforcement was the sticking point in San Diego recently when the City Council finally passed a tobacco retailer licensing law that included undercover buys.A survey conducted there showed that 44 percent of retailers in San Diego sell tobacco to minors.
While more than 70 communities in California have adopted tobacco retailer licensing ordinances, 47 include provisions that make them strong laws, according to the association’s Center for Tobacco Policy and Organizing. A matrix providing details for each of the 47 ordinances is available at www.center4tobaccopolicy.org along with data showing that tobacco retailer licensing is effective.
“Tobacco retailer licensing is an effective tool for reducing youth smoking,”Gallegos says.“We are saving them from a life of addiction to nicotine.”
* Not her real name to protect her identity
