ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 1, 1997 TAG: 9703030037
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
STAFF WRITER MARK CLOTHIER CONTRIBUTED TO THIS STORY.
PARENTS, NOT UNCLE SAM, should decide whether teen-agers may smoke, says a man who relied on his own common-sense method of regulating sales.
The Dilly-Dally Mini-Market in Salem sells Froot Loops and Miller Lite, canned beans and Necco wafers. There's even a tiny video rental shelf tucked into a corner.
But the cluttered store's mainstay is cigarettes.
Joe Camel grins from signs on the door. Racks of Dorals, Marlboros, Camels, Kools and Salems line the counter. Tobacco accounts for about 40 percent of sales, shop owner Roger McNulty figures.
McNulty doesn't smoke, never has. But he thinks anybody who is considered responsible enough to drive should be allowed to decide whether to light up. That's why, since he bought the store 12 years ago, he has sold cigarettes to 16-and 17-year-olds, even though state law says 18 is the legal age to buy tobacco.
He wouldn't sell to just any teen-ager who walked in. Only if he knew the kid - and knew it was OK with the parents - would he approve a tobacco purchase, McNulty said. That wasn't usually a problem, since Dilly-Dally is a neighborhood store, not a chain on a busy thoroughfare. The store, which opened early this century, is in an old slate-blue building on Eddy Street, on a corner in a residential area. Between McNulty and his night manager, they know 80 percent of their customers by name.
He's had parents tell him, in fact, that their kids may as well buy cigarettes from Dilly-Dally, because they're bound to get tobacco somewhere if they want it.
Parents who don't want their kids to buy tobacco from McNulty had only to tell him, he said, and he would stop selling to their teen-agers. A woman who came into the store to buy a pack of Salem Ultra Lights Friday morning, in fact, said she doesn't mind McNulty selling cigarettes to her almost-18 daughter.
"Once a kid turns 16, they've got a mind of their own," said the woman, who wouldn't give her name. She crushed her cigarette butt in the black plastic ashtray next to the cash register. "If kids are going to smoke, they're going to smoke. They're going to get them some way, somehow."
But not at Dilly-Dally, not anymore. When the Food and Drug Administration's new tobacco rules took effect Friday, McNulty reconsidered his policy.
He never was hassled by the police, he said, but he's not taking any chances now that the federal government is stepping in. Over the past week or so, he's been telling his underage customers that no ID means no smokes. The flood of young shoppers has slowed to a trickle, he said.
"I'm taking it a lot more serious," McNulty said. "I don't approve of it, but if it's going to be enforced" - he paused - "I'm not going to take the chance of wasting my time to go to court and fight it."
That's just the reaction the FDA hoped for. Under the new regulations, part of a two-year crackdown on underage smoking, retailers who sell cigarettes, cigarette tobacco and smokeless tobacco must check the identification of any customer under age 27. The rule prohibits the sale of tobacco to anyone under age 18.
President Clinton in 1995 launched the campaign against underage tobacco use, following a proposal by the FDA to regulate nicotine as a drug. An FDA advisory committee has concluded that nicotine is addictive. FDA Commissioner David Kessler has called smoking a "pediatric disease."
Eventually, the FDA will check retailers' compliance by conducting undercover stings using teens. The federal government still hasn't hired state inspectors to audit cigarette retailers' compliance. That means, at least until summer, anti-tobacco volunteers will have to blow the whistle on offenders.
But retailers caught selling tobacco to minors can be fined $250 or more and may face additional penalties, including jail time.
McNulty estimates he'll lose 25 percent to 30 percent of his business by not selling to minors. "There's a lot of kids out there," he said. "That's the market the cigarette industry was catering to, primarily." Government figures show minors buy $1.6billion in tobacco annually.
The second phase of the FDA regulations takes effect in August, when, McNulty said, he'll probably have to take down all the tobacco advertising in the shop.
That will change the appearance of the Eddy Street store, for sure. Gone will the clock shaped like a giant red pack of Winstons, the Camel ashtray and door signs, the Marlboro counter racks.
But more critical for the store owner, he'll lose the money that tobacco companies pay him to keep cigarette displays in the store. He figures he makes several thousand dollars a year simply by stocking the racks that crowd the counter.
At the Choice Cigarette Discount Outlet, a month-old Christiansburg store selling nothing but tobacco products, manager Jennifer Lane said the specialized inventory makes it easier to keep tabs on potential underage customers.
To help, the store's registers face the front door, which bear a sign telling those under 18 to keep out. Lane said the staff cards at the door if customers look young.
"We upset quite a few people on a daily basis," Lane said. "Even if you're a regular. No matter how many times you're in during the day, if you look under 30, we card you."
Around the nation, tobacco retailers are having to cope with the new, more stringent regulations. Groups including national and state retail associations have spoken out in opposition to the FDA rules, which a recent National Association of Convenience Stores press release called "burdensome." The regulations will infringe on retailers' First Amendment rights, the statement said, and may cost them thousands of dollars in remodeling fees and lost ad revenue.
But the trade organizations say they fully support state laws that prohibit the sale of tobacco to minors. "Kids should not be able to purchase tobacco products," said Lindsay Hutter, spokesperson for the National Association of Convenience Stores.
The best way to keep cigarettes away from minors, the groups say, is to let store owners and local officials enforce the state laws - not to get the federal government involved.
"I think we're going to have a lot of unhappy customers," said Donna Brown, assistant manager of a 7-Eleven store on Grandin Road. The additional carding will mean longer check-out lines - and irate, impatient customers. Her clerks are strict carders already, but they'll have to be still more vigilant to make sure they card even 27-year-old customers.
"It'll be a hassle until we get used to it," agreed Freda McKern, manager of the Stop-In Food Store on Wildwood Road in Salem. Her clerks have started handing out leaflets explaining the new carding procedure to some of the store's young-looking customers, she said. The biggest problem for retailers, she predicted, will be the toll-free number that consumers can use to report violations. She fears concerned customers will be overly zealous.
"If we've carded [a customer] 10 times already and somebody's standing in line behind them and we don't card them to save time, somebody can call and report us," McKern said.
McNulty said he doesn't know how he's going to make up for the loss in sales. He figures some parents will start buying cigarettes for their underage kids now, but that won't be enough to cover the shortfall. Unlike Kroger, he said, he can't branch into the pharmacy or bakery or photo business to supplement his income.
He knows people feel passionately about both sides of the kids-and-tobacco issue. He knows plenty of smoking opponents would be glad to see his business - or the business of anyone who broke the 18-and-over rule - fail. He knows it's a health issue, and he knows smoking opponents want to protect children.
But tobacco is also his livelihood, he said, and he thinks enforcement is something that should be left up to parents. He has two children - the older is 10 - and he said he hopes he will have taught them to "do the right thing" when the time comes for them to decide whether to smoke. He doesn't want the federal government to make that decision for them.
"It is getting into a segment of people's lives that should be regulated at home," he said.
LENGTH: Long : 147 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: JANEL RHODA STAFF. Roger McNulty, owner of theby CNBDilly-Dally Mini-Market in Salem for 12 years, estimates he'll lose
25 percent to 30 percent of his business by not selling to minors.
color. Graphic: Chart by staff: Tobacco: the new FDa rules. KEYWORDS: MGR