THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 6, 1996 TAG: 9608060369
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: 70 lines
The boy, tall with longish hair and wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt, bought cigarettes at more than a half-dozen convenience stories, groceries and drug stores - no problems, no questions asked.
But the merchants who agreed to sell to him were caught in a state-sponsored sting operation conducted at more than a thousand stores around Virginia this spring.
``I was pretty surprised. I figured most of them would at least ask me my age. Some of them didn't look twice,'' said Zane, who admitted he looks older than his 13 years.
The merchants were not prosecuted - simply handed a card by the teenager informing them that they had violated a state law against selling tobacco products to anyone under age 18.
Statewide, 37 percent of the 1,054 tobacco merchants checked were willing to sell to the underage buyers. That's down slightly from the 44 percent noncompliance rate in a similar operation involving 787 stores last year, said Neal Graham, director of the Office of Tobacco Use Control at the state Department of Health.
The noncompliance rates in this spring's survey ranged from a high of 49 percent in Northern Virginia to 28 percent in the eastern part of the state, he said. Stores in 34 cities and counties were tested.
Joan Foster, who coordinated the program in the Lynchburg area, said she thinks more merchants would have been willing to sell if they hadn't been warned that the operation was under way.
``It's unbelievable the grapevine,'' she said, recalling that a friend heard a merchant tell a young cigarette buyer he had to see ID because a sting operation was going on. She said some clerks would call nearby stores to warn that the testers were on their way.
``We got such mixed reactions from the clerks. Some were really upset that they got the card with the warning,'' she said. ``Some just totally blew it off. It was, `Oh, OK.' ''
One clerk who had just received a warning card promptly sold cigarettes to the next teenager who entered the store, Foster said.
Virginia started the testing program to comply with the Synar Amendment, a 1992 federal law that requires states to enforce a ban on tobacco sales to minors. States that fail to develop an effective enforcement plan risk losing federal health funds. Virginia gets about $28 million a year for substance abuse prevention and treatment, said Lewis Gallant of the Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.
Graham said Virginia has yet to begin testing in large areas of the state, including much of the Shenandoah Valley and the tobacco-growing Southside region. Before next year's tests, state health officials will conduct educational campaigns for merchants.
A new state law that requires store clerks to get a photo identification from buyers who look younger than 18 will help, but ``it's not a law that's got a lot of teeth in it,'' Graham said.
A clerk could simply say the buyer appeared to be 18, he said.
Graham estimated there are about 25,000 tobacco vendors in Virginia. The state eventually will have to do random checks at up to 1,300 stores a year to meet federal requirements.
``Hopefully, we'll be able to bring our numbers down,'' he said.
Jana Price-Davis, a lobbyist for the Virginia Retail Merchants Association, said merchants generally support the random checks.
``A number of them in fact, do the same type of operations within their stores,'' she said.
But teenagers who participated in the program said their classmates who smoke have no trouble getting cigarettes.
``It just depends on who is selling it,'' said Rob, 14. ``You have the people who are out there, they'll sell it to anybody because they're just out to get the money.'' by CNB